No person should rely on the contents of the APCUPSD Manual ("the manual")
without first obtaining advice from APC Technical Support.

The manual is provided on the terms and understanding that:

the authors, contributors and editors are not responsible for the
results of any actions taken on the basis of information in the manual,
nor for any error in or omission from the manual; and

the authors, contributors and editors are not engaged in rendering
technical or other advice or services.

The the authors, contributors and editors, expressly disclaim all and any
liability and responsibility to any person, whether a reader of the manual
or not, in respect of anything, and of the consequences of anything, done or
omitted to be done by any such person in reliance, whether wholly or partially,
on the whole or any part of the contents of the manual. Without limiting the
generality of the above, no author, contributor or editor shall have any
responsibility for any act or omission of any other author, contributor or
editor.

This is the manual for apcupsd, a
daemon for communicating with UPSes (Uninterruptible Power
Supplies) made by American Power Conversion Corporation (APC). If you have an
APC-made UPS, whether sold under the APC nameplate or OEMed (for example, the HP
PowerTrust 2997A), and you want you get it working with a computer running
Linux, Unix, or Windows, you are reading the right document.

This manual is divided into parts which increase in technical depth
as they go. If you have just bought a state-of-the-art smart UPS
with a USB or Ethernet interface, and you are running a current
version of Red Hat or SUSE Linux, then apcupsd is
very nearly plug-and-play and you will have to read only the Basic
User's Guide.

If your operating system is older, or if you have an old-fashioned
serial-line UPS, you'll have to read about serial installation (see
Installation: Serial-Line UPSes). If you need more
details about administration for unusual situations (such as a
master/slave or multi-UPS setup) you'll need to read the sections on
those topics as well. Finally,
there are a number of technical reference sections which
gives full details on things like configuration file directives and
event-logging formats.

apcupsd is a complex piece of software, but
most of its complexities are meant for dealing with older hardware
and operating systems. On current hardware and software getting it
running should not be very complicated.

The following is a help guide to the steps needed to get apcupsd
set up and running as painlessly as possible.

Plan your configuration type (see Choosing a Configuration
Type). If you have just one UPS and
one computer, this is easy. If you have more than one machine being
served by the same UPS, or more than one UPS supplying power to
computers that are on the same local network, you have more choices
to make.

Figure out if you have one of the easy setups. If you have a USB
UPS, and a supported operating system and you want to use one UPS
with one computer, that's an easy setup. APC supplies the cable
needed to talk with that UPS along with the UPS. All you need to do
is check that your USB subsystem is working (see USB
Configuration); if so, you can go to the build
and install step.

If you have a UPS designed to communicate via SNMP over
Ethernet, that is also a relatively easy installation. Details
are provided in Support for SNMP UPSes.

If you have a UPS that communicates via an RS232C serial
interface and it is a SmartUPS, then things are relatively simple,
otherwise, your life is about to get interesting.

If you have a vendor-supplied cable, find out what cable type
you have by looking on the flat ends of the cable for a number,
such as 940-0020A, stamped in the plastic.

If you don't have a vendor-supplied cable, or your type is not
supported, you may have to build one yourself (see
Cables). Here is hoping you are good with a soldering
iron!

Now you are ready to read the Building and Installing (see
Building and Installing apcupsd)
section of the manual and follow those directions. If you are
installing from an RPM or some other form of binary package, this
step will probably consist of executing a single command.

Tweak your /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf file as necessary. Often it
will not be.

Change the BIOS settings (see Arranging for Reboot on
Power-Up) on your computer
so that boots up every time it gets power. (This is not the default
on most systems.)

To verify that your UPS is communicating with your computer and
will do the right thing when the power goes out, read and follow
the instructions in the Testing (see Testing
Apcupsd) section.

If you still need help, send a message to the apcupsd users' email
list (apcupsd-users@lists.sourceforge.net) describing your
problem, what version of
apcupsd you are using, what operating system you are using, and
anything else you think might be helpful.

apcupsd supports many UNIX-like operating systems as well as several
variants of Windows. Due to lack of API standardization, USB support is not
available on every platform. See Platform Support below for details.

In general it is recommended to obtain a prebuilt package for your platform.
Given how apcupsd must integrate into the shutdown mechanism of the
operating system and the rate at which such mechanisms are changed by
vendors, the platform ports in the apcupsd tree may become out of date. In
some cases, binary packages are provided by the apcupsd team (RedHat,
Mandriva, SuSE, Windows, Mac OS X). For other platforms it is recommended to
check your vendor's package repository and third party repositories for
recent binary packages. Note that some vendors continue to distribute
ancient versions of apcupsd with known defects. These packages should not be
used.

apcupsd supports nearly every APC brand UPS model in existence and enough
different cable types to connect to all of them.

The UPSTYPE <keyword> field is the value you will put in
your /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf file to tell apcupsd what type of UPS
you have. We'll describe the possible values here, because they're
a good way to explain your UPS's single most important interface
property: the kind of protocol it uses to talk with its
computer.

apcsmart

The 'apcsmart' protocol uses an RS232 serial connection to pass
commands back and forth in a primitive language resembling
modem-control codes. APC calls this language "UPS-Link". Originally
introduced for Smart-UPS models (thus the name 'apcsmart'), this
class of UPS is in decline, rapidly being replaced in APC's product
line by USB and MODBUS UPSes.

usb

A USB UPS speaks a universal well defined control
language over a USB wire. Most of APC's lineup now uses this method
as of late 2003, and it seems likely to completely take over in
their low- and middle range. The most recent APC UPSes support only a
limited set of data over the USB interface. MODBUS (see below) is required
in order to access the advanced data.

net

This is the keyword to specify if you are using your
UPS in Slave mode (i.e. the machine is not directly connected to
the UPS, but to another machine which is), and it is connected to
the Master via an ethernet connection. You must have apcupsd's
Network Information Services NIS turned on for this mode to work.

A dumb or voltage-signaling UPS and its computer
communicate through the control lines (not the data lines) on an RS232C
serial connection. Not much can actually be conveyed this way other than
an order to shut down. Voltage-signaling UPSes are obsolete; you
are unlikely to encounter one other than as legacy hardware. If you
have a choice, we recommend you avoid simple signalling UPSes.

pcnet

PCNET is an alternative for SNMP available on APC's
AP9617 family of smart slot modules. The protocol is much simpler
and potentially more secure than SNMP.

modbus

MODBUS is the newest APC protocol and operates over RS232 serial links or
USB. MODBUS is APC's replacement for the aging 'apcsmart' (aka UPS-Link)
protocol. MODBUS is the only way to access detailed control and status
information on newer (esp. SMT series) UPSes.

There are three major
ways of running apcupsd on your system. The first is a standalone
configuration where apcupsd controls a single UPS, which powers a
single computer. This is the most common configuration. If you're
working with just one machine and one UPS, skip the rest of this
section.

Your choices become more interesting if you are running a small
cluster or a big server farm. Under those circumstances, it may not
be possible or even desirable to pair a UPS with every single
machine. apcupsd supports some alternate arrangements.

The second type of configuration is the NIS (Network Information
Server) server and client. In this configuration, where one UPS
powers several computers, a copy of apcupsd running one one
computer will act as a server while the other(s) will act as
network clients which poll the server for information about the
UPS. Note that "NIS" is not related to Sun's directory service
also called "NIS" or "Yellow Pages".

The third configuration is where a single
computer controls multiple UPSes. In this case, there are several
instances of apcupsd on the same computer, each controlling a
different UPS. One instance of apcupsd will run in standalone mode, and
the other instance will normally run in network mode.
This type of configuration may be appropriate for large server
farms that use one dedicated machine for monitoring and
diagnostics

Apcupsd supports USB connections on all major operating systems:
Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Windows, Solaris, and Mac OS X
Darwin. If you plan to use a USB connection, please read the
appropriate subsection in its entirety. You can skip this section
if your UPS has a serial (RS232-C) or Ethernet interface or if you
are not running one of the platforms listed above.

Linux 2.4 series kernels older than 2.4.22 (RH 9, RHEL 3)
do not bind the USB device to the proper driver. This is evidenced
by /proc/bus/usb/devices listing the UPS correctly but it will have
"driver=(none)" instead of "driver=(hid)". This affects RHEL3,
among others.

Workaround

Upgrade linux kernel to 2.4.22 or higher. Alternately,
you apply the linux-2.4.20-killpower.patch and
linux-2.4.20-USB-reject.patch patches to your kernel and rebuild
it. These patches can be found in the examples/ directory in the
apcupsd source distribution.

To make sure that your USB subsystem can see the UPS, just do this
from a shell prompt:

cat /proc/bus/usb/devices

This information is updated by the kernel whenever a device is
plugged in or unplugged, irrespective of whether apcupsd is running
or not. It contains details on all the USB devices in your system
including hubs (internal and external), input devices, and UPSes.

You should get some output back that includes something like this,
featuring a BackUPS RS 1000:

The important things to check for are the S: lines describing
your UPS and and the I: line showing what driver is handling it.
If on the I: line, Driver is listed as Driver=none then
you do not have the HID driver loaded or the driver did not attach
to the UPS. One common cause is having a Linux kernel older than
2.4.22 (such as a stock RedHat 9 or RHEL 3 kernel). If this is the
case for your system, please upgrade to at least kernel version
2.4.22 and try again. If you are already running a 2.4.22 or higher
kernel, please read further for instructions for other possible
courses of action.

In general, if you see your UPS model in the S: field, which
means Manufacturer=, Product=, and SerialNumber=, and you
see Driver=hid in the I: field, you know the UPS has been
recognized and is bound to the correct driver.

If your UPS doesn't appear in the list at all, check the obvious
things: The UPS must be powered on, and a cable must be properly
seated in both the data port of the UPS and one of your machine's
USB ports. Many UPSes have phone ports to provide surge protection
for phones or modems -- make sure you haven't plugged your USB
cable into one of those rather than the data port (which will
usually be near the top edge of the case.)

Also, ensure that the correct drivers are loaded. Under
Linux-2.4.x, you can check this out easily by examining the
/proc/bus/usb/drivers file. Here's how you can do that:

cat /proc/bus/usb/drivers

...and you should get:

usbdevfs
hub
96-111: hiddev
hid

On Linux-2.6.x, make sure the sysfs filesystem is mounted on /sys
and do:

If your 2.6.x system does not have the /sys/bus/usb directory,
either you do not have sysfs mounted on /sys or the USB module(s)
have not been loaded. (Check /proc/mounts to make sure sysfs is
mounted.)

A USB UPS needs all of these drivers -- the USB device filesystem,
the USB hub, the Human Interface Device subsystem driver, and the
Human Interface Device driver. If you are compiling your own
kernel, you want to enable

Apcupsd accesses USB UPSes via the hiddev device nodes. Typically
these are located in /dev/hiddevN, /dev/usb/hiddevN or
/dev/usb/hiddev/hiddevN (where N is a digit 0 thru 9). Some
distributions (some Debian releases, possibly others) do not
provides these device nodes for you, so you will have to make them
yourself. Check /dev, /dev/usb, and /dev/usb/hiddev and if you
cannot find the hiddevN nodes, run (as root) the
examples/make-hiddev script from the apcupsd source distribution.

Modern Linux distributions using the 2.6 kernel create device nodes
dynamically on the fly as they are needed. It is basically a
hotplug system, giving a lot more power to the user to determine
what happens when a device is probed or opened. It is also a lot
more complicated.

Some early 2.6 distributions (Fedora Core 3, for one) do not
include hiddev rules in their default udev rule set. The bottom
line for apcupsd on such a system is that if the hiddevN is not
created when you plug in your UPS, apcupsd will terminate with an
error. The solution to the problem is to add a rule to the udev
rules file. On Fedora FC3, this file is found in
/etc/udev/rules.d/50-udev.rules. Start by adding the following
line:

BUS="usb", SYSFS{idVendor}="051d", NAME="usb/hiddev%n"

Note that this rule uses obsolete udev syntax and is specific to
FC3 and other distributions of similar vintage.

Then either reboot your system, or unplug and replug your UPS and
then restart apcupsd. At that point a /dev/usb/hiddevN node
should appear and apcupsd should work fine.

If you have several UPSes or you just want to give your UPS a fixed
name, you can use rules like the following:

Replace the serial number in quotes with the one that corresponds
to your UPS. Then whenever you plug in your UPS a symlink called
ups0, ups1, etc. will be created pointing to the correct hiddev
node. This technique is highly recommended if you have more than
one UPS connected to the same server since rearranging your USB
cables or even upgrading the kernel can affect the order in which
devices are detected and thus change which hiddev node corresponds
to which UPS. If you use the symlink-by-serial-number approach the
link will always point to the correct device node.

You can use...

udevinfo -a -p /sys/class/usb/hiddev0/

...to get more information on the fields that can be matched
besides serial number.

To find the available attributes to match (note that the serial is NOT always
the UPS serial on the box or in the USB connect message in /var/log/messages),
use:

udevadm info --attribute-walk --name=/dev/usb/hiddev0

An additional device-node-related problem is the use of dynamic
minors. Some distributions, such as Mandrake 10, ship with a kernel
having CONFIG_USB_DYNAMIC_MINORS turned on. This is not ideal
for running with apcupsd, and the easiest solution is to turn
CONFIG_USB_DYNAMIC_MINORS off and rebuild your kernel, or find a
pre-built kernel with it off. For a kernel with
CONFIG_USB_DYNAMIC_MINORS turned on to work with apcupsd, you
must enable devfs. The following will tell you if devfs is
enabled:

$ ps ax | grep devs

...which should give something like the following:

533 ? S 0:00 devfsd /dev

What complicates the situation much more on Mandrake kernels is
their security level since CONFIG_DYNAMIC_USB_MINORS is turned
on, but on higher security levels devfs is turned off. The net
result, is that in those situations hiddev is completely unusable
so apcupsd will not work. So, in these cases, the choices are:

Reduce the security level setting of the system (not sure if
this is possible after the initial install).

Custom build a high security kernel with devfs enabled and make
sure devfs is mounted and devfsd is running.

If all these things check out and you still can't see the UPS,
something is more seriously wrong than this manual can cover --
find expert help. If you are unable to list USB devices or drivers,
you kernel may not be USB-capable and that needs to be fixed.

Users of OpenBSD, NetBSD, and some versions of FreeBSD will need to
rebuild the kernel in order to enable the ugen driver and
disable the uhid driver. uhid is not sufficient for apcupsd at
this time and we need to prevent it from grabbing the UPS device.
You should make the following changes to your kernel config
file:

FreeBSD (v5.4 and below, v6.0)

(you will not lose use of USB keyboard and mouse)

Disable: uhid

Enable: ugen

FreeBSD (v5.5, v6.1 and above)

(you will not lose use of USB keyboard and mouse)

Disable: (nothing)

Enable: ugen

This is the default configuration for a GENERIC kernel on many
platforms so you most likely will not need to recompile.

NetBSD (v3.x and below)

(you will lose use of USB keyboard and mouse)

Disable: uhidev, ums, wsmouse, ukbd, wskbd, uhid

Enable: ugen

NetBSD (v4.0 and above)

You can use apcupsd on single USB port
without disabling the USB keyboard and mouse on other ports, though
all other devices will be disabled on the port you pick for your
UPS.

First, decide which hub and port you wish to use. You can find out
the hub and port numbers for any particular physical connector by
plugging a USB device into it and looking at the messages printed
by the kernel; you should messages something like this:

uxx0 at uhub0 port 1
uxx0: <some device name>

To use your APC UPS on this port, configure the kernel to prefer
attachment of the ugen driver over other drivers on this hub and
port only, by adding a line like this to your kernel config file:

Note that the ugen driver is called out. If you see uhid
instead, it probably means you did not properly disable the uhid
driver when you compiled your kernel or perhaps you're not running
the new kernel.

You can also check with 'usbdevs -d' to get a list of USB devices
recognized by the system as well as the drivers they are associated
with. For example:

By default, NetBSD only creates nodes for the first ugen
device, ugen0. Check usbdevs -d to see which device your
UPS was bound to and then create the appropriate node by running
'cd /dev ; ./MAKEDEV ugenN', where ugenN is the ugen device name
shown by usbdevs. It is probably a good idea to create several sets
of ugen nodes in case you add more USB devices.

OpenBSD

Similar to NetBSD, OpenBSD creates nodes for ugen0 and
ugen1. Check usbdevs -d to see which device your UPS was
bound to and then create the appropriate node by running 'cd /dev
; ./MAKEDEV ugenN', where ugenN is the ugen device name shown
by usbdevs. It is probably a good idea to create several sets of
ugen nodes in case you add more USB devices.

USB connected UPSes on Windows require a special driver. In most
cases, this driver is automatically installed when you install
Apcupsd. However in some cases you may need to install the driver manually.
For detailed instructions, please see the install.txt file located
in the driver folder of your Apcupsd install.

After installing Apcupsd (and the Apcupsd USB driver, if
necessary), plug in your UPS USB cable and open the Windows Device
Manager. You should see a American Power Conversion USB UPS (Apcupsd)
listed under the Batteries section. If a device of that name does not
appear, check that your UPS is powered on and that the USB cable is connected
at both ends. Reinstall the driver as directed above if needed.

Some specific packages are necessary when building Apcupsd with USB
support on Solaris. You must install the SUNWlibusb and
SUNWlibusbugen packages BEFORE attempting to build Apcupsd.
These packages can be found on the Solaris installation CDROMs and
should be installed with the pkgadd utility.

You also should build using the gcc compiler and ccs make, not
Sun's compiler. The appropriate make utility can be found in
/usr/ccs/bin. gcc can be installed from packages included on the
Solaris installation CDROMs.

After building, install Apcupsd as root using 'make install',
then perform a reconfigure boot ('reboot ---r'). During
installation, Apcupsd will automatically configure your USB
subsystem to attach APC USB devices to the ugen driver. This is
a critical step and must be completed by a reconfigure boot. Note
that the USB config changes will be reversed if you remove Apcupsd
using 'make uninstall'.

Note that the ugen driver is called out. If you do not see any
dmesg entries related to your UPS, ensure that it is turned on and
that the USB cable is connected at both ends. Also verify that you
installed Apcupsd as root using the 'make install' command and
that you performed a reconfigure boot afterward.

Apcupsd communicates with the UPS through the USB generic device, ugen.
The reconfigure boot performed after Apcupsd installation
will ensure the correct device nodes are created. Once your UPS has
been recognized in dmesg as shown above, you can check /dev/usb to
see if the device nodes have appeared:

Some specific packages are necessary when building Apcupsd with USB
support on Darwin. You must install libusb-0.1.12 which
can be obtained from MacPorts (http://www.macports.org) (formerly
DarwinPorts) or Fink (http://fink.sourceforge.net) or downloaded and built
by hand (http://www.libusb.org). You must not use
libusb-1.x or higher (apcupsd does not support the new 1.0 APIs) nor
any version earlier than 0.1.12 (earlier versions have a bug that apcupsd
triggers). Generally that means you must use exactly 0.1.12. Note that
Apcupsd is sensitive to the install location of libusb, so beware if you
change it from the default.

Apcupsd should be built using gcc, preferably from the XCode
development tools. Currently the maintainer is using gcc-4.0.1 from
XCode 2.4. Other versions of gcc from other sources may also work.

After building, install Apcupsd as root using 'make install'
and then reboot. During installation, Apcupsd will automatically
install a simple dummy kext driver designed to prevent Apple's
monitoring software from taking over the UPS. It is necessary to
reboot in order to activate the kext. Note that this kext will be
automatically removed if you uninstall Apcupsd using
'make uninstall', allowing Apple's monitoring tool to once
again access the UPS.

After installing Apcupsd as described above and rebooting, plug in
your UPS USB cable. You should notice that Darwin does NOT
display the battery monitor tool in the menu bar. You can also
check Apple Menu -> About This Mac -> More Info... -> USB to ensure
that your UPS appears in the list of USB devices.

In general it is recommended to obtain a prebuilt binary package for your
platform. Given how apcupsd must integrate into the shutdown mechanism of the
operating system and the rate at which such mechanisms are changed by
vendors, the platform ports in the apcupsd tree may become out of date. In
some cases, binary packages are provided by the apcupsd team (RedHat,
Mandriva, SuSE, Windows, Mac OS X). For other platforms it is recommended to
check your vendor's package repository and third party repositories for
recent binary packages before resorting to building apcupsd from scratch.
Note that some vendors continue to distribute ancient versions of apcupsd
with known defects. These packages should not be used.

For systems based on RPM packages, such as Red Hat and SuSE, apcupsd is
available in binary RPM format. This is the simplest way to
install. If you have no previous version of apcupsd on your machine
and are creating a standalone configuration, simply install the RPM
with a normal 'rpm -ihv' command. You're done, and can now skip
the rest of this chapter and go straight to tweaking your run-time
configuration file. (see After Installation)

If you have a previous installation, you can upgrade with a normal
'rpm -Uhv', but this may not upgrade the halt script. It may be
better to do the upgrade as a remove 'rpm -e' followed by a
fresh install 'rpm -ihv'.

After installation of the binary RPM, please verify carefully that
/etc/rc.d/init.d/halt was properly updated and contains new script
lines flagged with ***APCUPSD***.

Since there is no standard location for cgi-bin, the rpm will place
the binary CGI programs in the directory /etc/apcupsd/cgi. To
actually use them, you must copy or move them to your actual
cgi-bin directory, which on many systems is located in
/home/httpd/cgi-bin.

The Windows version of apcupsd is distributed as a simple double-click
installer. Installation is very simple and straight-forward: Simply
double-click the installer executable and follow the instructions. See
The Windows Version of apcupsd for further details.

Installation from source might have to be be done different ways
depending on what system you are running. The basic procedure
involves getting a source distribution, running the configuration,
rebuilding, and installing.

For building the system, we suggest that you run the configure and
make processes as your normal UNIX user ID. The 'make install'
must be run as root. But if your normal ID has an environment setup
for using the C compiler, it's simpler to do that than to set up
root to have the correct environment.

apcupsd requires gcc and g++ compilers as well as GNU make.
Other compilers or BSD make will not work. GNU make is sometimes
installed as gmake. The configure script will check for this and will
inform you of what command to use to invoke GNU make.

The basic installation from a tar source file is rather simple:

Unpack the source code from its tar archive.

Go into the directory containing the source code.

Run './configure' (with appropriate options as described
below)

'make' or 'gmake'' as instructed by configure

'su' (i.e. become root)

Stop any running instance of apcupsd. The command to do this
will look like 'system-dependent-path/apcupsd stop'

uninstall any old apcupsd This is important since the default
install locations may have changed.

'make install' or 'gmake install'

edit your /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf file if necessary

ensure that your halt script is properly updated

Start the new apcupsd with: 'system-dependent-path/apcupsd
start'

If all goes well, the './configure' will correctly determine which
operating system you are running and configure the source code
appropriately. configure currently recognizes the systems listed
below in the Operating System Specifics section of this chapter and
adapts the configuration appropriately. Check that the
configuration report printed at the end of the configure process
corresponds to your choice of directories, options, and that it has
correctly detected your operating system. If not, redo the
configure with the appropriate options until your configuration is
correct.

Please note that a number of the configure options preset
apcupsd.conf directive values in an attempt to automatically adapt
apcupsd as best possible to your system. You can change the values
in apcupsd.conf at a later time without redoing the configuration
process by simply editing the apcupsd.conf file.

Other configuration options can be used to set up the installation
of HTML documentation and optional modules, notably the CGI
interface that enables the UPS state to be queried via the Web. You
will find a complete reference later in this chapter.

In general, you will probably want to supply a more elaborate
configure statement to ensure that the modules you want are built
and that everything is placed into the correct directories.

On Red Hat, a fairly typical configuration command would look like
the following:

By default, 'make install' will install the executable files in
/sbin, the manuals in /usr/man, and the configuration and script
files in /etc/apcupsd. In addition, if your system is recognized,
certain files such as the startup script and the system halt script
will be placed in appropriate system directories (usually
subdirectories of /etc/rc.d).

There are a number of things that you can do to check if the
installation (make install) went well. The fist is to check where
the system has installed apcupsd using 'which' and 'whereis'. On
my Red Hat system, you should get the following (lines preceded
with a $ indicate what you type):

If you find an apcupsd in /usr/sbin, /usr/local/sbin, /usr/lib, or
another such directory, it is probably a piece of an old version of
apcupsd that you can delete. If you are in doubt, delete it, then
rerun the 'make install' to ensure that you haven't deleted
anything needed by the new apcupsd. Please note that the files
specified above assume the default installation locations.

As a final check that the 'make install' went well, you should
check your halt script (in /etc/rc.d on SUSE systems, and in
/etc/rc.d/init.d on Red Hat systems) to see that the appropriate
lines have been inserted in the correct place. Modification of the
halt script is important so that at the end of the shutdown
procedure, apcupsd will be called again to command the UPS to turn
off the power. This should only be done in a power failure
situation as indicated by the presence of the /etc/powerfail file,
and is necessary if you want your machine to automatically be
restarted when the power returns. On a Red Hat system, the lines
containing the # ***apcupsd*** should be inserted just
before the final halt command:

The purpose of modifying the system halt files is so that apcupsd
will be recalled after the system is in a stable state. At that
point, apcupsd will instruct the UPS to shut off the power. This is
necessary if you wish your system to automatically reboot when the
mains power is restored. If you prefer to manually reboot your
system, you can skip this final system dependent installation step
by specifying the disable-install-distdir option on the
'./configure' command (see below for more details).

The above pertains to Red Hat systems only. There are significant
differences in the procedures on each system, as well as the
location of the halt script. Also, the information that is inserted
in your halt script varies from system to system. Other systems
such as Solaris require you the make the changes manually, which
has the advantage that you won't have any unpleasant surprises in
your halt script should things go wrong. Please consult the
specific system dependent README files for more details.

Please note that if you install from RPMs for a slave machine, you
will need to remove the changes that the RPM install script made
(similar to what is noted above) to the halt script. This is
because on a slave machine there is no connection to the UPS, so
there is no need to attempt to power off the UPS. That will be done
by the master.

When specifying options for './configure', if in doubt, don't put
anything, since normally the configuration process will determine
the proper settings for your system. The advantage of these options
is that it permits you to customize your version of apcupsd. If you
save the './configure' command that you use to create apcupsd, you
can quickly reset the same customization in the next version of
apcupsd by simply re-using the same command.

The following command line options are available for configure
to customize your installation.

--prefix=path

This defines the directory for the
non-executable files such as the manuals.
The default is /usr.

--sbindir=path

This defines the directory for
the executable files such as apcupsd.
The default is /sbin. You may
be tempted to place the executable files in /usr/sbin or
/usr/local/sbin. Please use caution here as these directories may
be unmounted during a shutdown and thus may prevent the halt
script from calling apcupsd to turn off the UPS power. Though your
data will be protected, in this case, your system will probably not
be automatically rebooted when the power returns

--enable-cgi

This enables the building of the
CGI programs that permit Web browser access to apcupsd data. This
option is not necessary for the proper execution of apcupsd.

--with-cgi-bin=path

The with-cgi-bin
configuration option allows you to define the directory where the
CGI programs will be installed. The default is /etc/apcupsd, which
is probably not what you want.

--enable-apcsmart

Turns on generation of the APC Smart driver (default).

--enable-dumb

Turns on generation of the dumb signalling driver code (default).

--enable-usb

Turns on generation of the USB driver code. By default this is disabled.

--enable-net

Turns on generation of the NIS
network driver for slaves. For each slave, this is the only driver
needed. This driver works by reading the information from the the
configured master using the NIS (Network Information Services)
interface.

--enable-snmp

Turns on generation of the
SNMP driver. This driver accesses the UPS over the network using
SNMP. This is compatible only with UPSes equipped with an SNMP or
Web/SNMP management card. By default this is enabled.

--enable-net-snmp

Turns on generation of the
obsolete NET-SNMP driver. This driver was the precursor to the current
snmp driver and is now obsolete. It is available as a fallback if the new
driver cannot be used for some reason. By default this is disabled.

--enable-pcnet

Turns on generation of the
PCNET (PowerChute Network Shutdown) driver. This driver accesses
the UPS over the network using APC's custom protocol. This driver
can be used as an alternative to SNMP for UPSes equipped with a
modern Web/SNMP management card.

--enable-modbus

Turns on generation of the MODBUS/RS232 driver (default)

--enable-modbus-usb

Turns on generation of the MODBUS/USB driver

--enable-test

This turns on a test driver
that is used only for debugging. By default it is disabled.

--enable-gapcmon

This option enables building the GTK GUI front-end for
apcupsd. Building this package requires numerous GNOME libraries. The
default is disabled.

--enable-apcagent

This option enables building the apcagent menubar application
on Mac OS X platforms. The default is disabled.

--with-libwrap=path, --with-libwrap

This option when
enabled causes apcupsd to be built with the TCP WRAPPER library for
enhanced security. In most cases, the path is optional since
configure will determine where the libraries are on most systems.

--with-nologin=path

This option allows you
to specify where apcupsd will create the nologin file when logins
are prohibited. The default is /etc

--with-pid-dir=path

This option allows you
to specify where apcupsd will create the process id (PID) file to
prevent multiple copies from running. The default is system
dependent but usually /var/run.

--with-log-dir=path

This option allows you
to specify where apcupsd will create the EVENTS and STATUS log
files. The default is /etc/apcupsd. This option simply sets the
default of the appropriate path in the apcupsd.conf file, which can
be changed at any later time.

--with-lock-dir=path

This option allows
you to specify where apcupsd will create the serial port lock file.
The default is system-dependent but usually /var/lock. This option
simply sets the appropriate path in the apcupsd.conf file, which
can be changed at any later time.

--with-pwrfail-dir=path

This option
allows you to specify where apcupsd will create the powerfail file
when a power failure occurs. The default is system dependent but
usually /etc.

--with-serial-dev=device-name

This
option allows you to specify where apcupsd will look for the serial
device that talks to the UPS. The default is system dependent, but
often /dev/ttyS0. This option simply sets the appropriate device
name in the apcupsd.conf file, which can be changed at any later
time.

--with-nis-port=port

This option allows
you to specify what port apcupsd will use for the Network
Information Server (the CGI programs). The default is system
dependent but usually 3551 because that port has been officially
assigned to apcupsd by the IANA. This option simply sets the
appropriate port in the apcupsd.conf file, which can be changed at
any later time.

--with-nisip=ip-address

This option allows
you to specify the value that will be placed on then NISIP
directive in the configuration file. The default is 0.0.0.0. No
checking is done on the value entered, so you must ensure that it
is a valid IP address.

--with-net-port=port

This option allows
you to specify what port apcupsd will use for Master and Slave
communications. The default is system dependent but usually 6666.
This option simply sets the appropriate port in the apcupsd.conf
file, which can be changed at any later time.

--with-upstype=type

This option allows you
to specify the type of UPS that will be connected to your computer.
The default is: smartups. This option simply sets the appropriate
UPS type in the apcupsd.conf file, which can be changed at any
later time.

--with-upscable=cable

This option allows
you to specify what cable you are using to connect to the UPS. The
default is: smart. This option simply sets the appropriate UPS
cable in the apcupsd.conf file, which can be changed at any later
time.

--disable-install-distdir

This
option modifies the apcupsd Makefiles disable installation of the
distribution (platform) directory. Generally, this used to do a
full installation of apcupsd except the final modification of the
operating system files (normally /etc/rc.d/halt, etc.). This is
useful if your operating system is not directly supported by
apcupsd or if you want to run two copies of apcupsd on the same
system. This option can also be used by those of you who prefer to
manually reboot your system after a power failure or who do not
want to modify your system halt files.

Some systems require unusual options
for compilation or linking that the './configure' script does not
know about. You can specify initial values for variables by setting
them in the environment. Using a Bourne-compatible shell, you can
do that on the command line like this:

With the exception of Linux SUSE and Linux Red Hat
systems used by the developers, we rely on users to help create
installation scripts and instructions as well as to test that
apcupsd runs correctly on their system. As you can imagine, most of
these people are system administrators rather than developers so
they are very busy and don't always have time to test the latest
releases. With that in mind, we believe that you will find that a
lot of very valuable work has been already done to make your
installation much easier (and probably totally automatic).

Below, you will find a list of operating systems for which we have
received installation files:

This port is complete and is being used by several users. Since Debian
build and install procedures are somewhat particular, we have put the extra
Debian information into the following two subdirectories:
platforms/debian/examples and platforms/debian/packageinfo

You will need to install and use GNU make (aka gmake) instead of the
BSD make supplied with the system.

On the FreeBSD OS, there is no known way for a user program to get
control when all the disks are synced. This is needed for apcupsd
to be able to issue the killpower command to the UPS so that the
UPS shuts off the power. To accomplish the same thing on FreeBSD
systems, make sure you have a SmartUPS and that your UPS shutdown
grace period is set sufficiently long so that you system will power
down (usually 2 minutes), the use the --kill-on-powerfail option
on the apcupsd command line.

On OS X (Darwin), apcupsd can be built with configure defaults.
The USB driver can be enabled, as per the directions on Mac OS X (Darwin)
USB Configuration Apcupsd may be usable
on OS X with a smart serial device, but certainly does work as a
NIS client or using a USB interface.

The startup information will be installed in
/Library/StartupItems/apcupsd which is part of darwin's
SystemStartup.

You will need to install and use GNU make (aka gmake) instead of the
BSD make supplied with the system.

Ensure that you read
the distributions/openbsd/README file before running apcupsd. There
are some critical differences in how the OpenBSD implementation
operates when the UPS batteries are exhausted. Failure to take this
into account may result in the system not being fully halted when
power is lost.

Please read this before attempting to compile or install the beta
software. It contains important information that will make your
efforts easier.

Before running './configure', please be sure that you do not have
/usr/ucb on your path. This may cause the configure to choose
the wrong shutdown program. If configure detects that /usr/usb
is on your path, it will print a warning message. Please follow the
advice to avoid shutdown problems.

Your normal UNIX user ID must own the source tree directories, and
you must have the normal development tools in your path. This
includes make, the compiler, the M4 preprocessor, the linker, and
ar or ranlib. If the user you are logged in as can compile and link
a C program from a source file, then you have all the required
tools available.

You will want to install the executables in a directory that
remains mounted during the shutdown. Solaris will unmount almost
everything except the root directories. Since the ability to power
the UPS off requires access to the executable programs, they need
to be in a directory that will never be unmounted. And since they
should also be in a directory that normal users cannot get into,
/sbin is the default. However, please be aware that if you want to
follow Sun's filesystem conventions you would use the following:

The way to setup the /sbin directory as the executables directory
is to pass configure the --sbindir=/sbin option. No other
arguments should be required, and your setup and platform should be
detected automatically by configure.

Once you have run configure, you will need to do a 'gmake'. Once
the make has completed with no errors, you must su to root to
complete the install. After the su, you may not have a path to the
make program anymore. In that case, you should do the 'gmake
install' step as:

gmake install

Once the install completes, you must edit the /sbin/rc0 script as
detailed below, then exit from the su'ed shell.

In order to support unattended operation and shutdown during a
power failure, it's important that the UPS remove power after the
shutdown completes. This allows the unattended UPS to reboot the
system when power returns by re-powering the system. Of course, you
need autoboot enabled for your system to do this, but all Solaris
systems have this by default. If you have disabled this on your
system, please re-enable it.

To get the UPS to remove power from the system at the correct time
during shutdown, i.e., after the disks have done their final sync,
we need to modify a system script. This script is /sbin/rc0.

We do not have access to every version of Solaris, but we believe
this file will be almost identical on every version. Please let us
know if this is not true.

At the very end of the /sbin/rc0 script, you should find lines just
like the following:

# unmount file systems. /usr, /var and /var/adm are not unmounted by umountall
# because they are mounted by rcS (for single user mode) rather than
# mountall.
# If this is changed, mountall, umountall and rcS should also change.
/sbin/umountall
/sbin/umount /var/adm >/dev/null 2>\&1
/sbin/umount /var >/dev/null 2>\&1
/sbin/umount /usr >/dev/null 2>\&1
echo 'The system is down.'

We need to insert the following lines just before the last 'echo':

#see if this is a powerfail situation
if [ -f /etc/apcupsd/powerfail ]; then
echo
echo "APCUPSD will power off the UPS"
echo
/etc/apcupsd/apccontrol killpower
echo
echo "Please ensure that the UPS has powered off before rebooting"
echo "Otherwise, the UPS may cut the power during the reboot!!!"
echo
fi

We have included these lines in a file called rc0.solaris in the
distributions/sun subdirectory of the source tree. You can cut and
paste them into the /sbin/rc0 file at the correct place, or yank
and put them using vi or any other editor. Note that you must be
root to edit this file.

You must be absolutely sure you have them in the right place. If
your /sbin/rc0 file does not look like the lines shown above, do
not modify the file. Instead, email a copy of the file to the
maintainers, and we will attempt to figure out what you should do.
If you mess up this file, the system will not shut down cleanly,
and you could lose data. Don't take the chance.

You will then need to make the normal changes to the
/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf file. This file contains the
configuration settings for the package. It is important that you
set the values to match your UPS model and cable type, and the
serial port that you have attached the UPS to. People have used
both /dev/ttya and /dev/ttyb with no problems. You should be sure
that logins are disabled on the port you are going to use,
otherwise you will not be able to communicate with the UPS. If you
are not sure that logins are disabled for the port, run the
'admintool' program as root, and disable the port. The 'admintool'
program is a GUI administration program, and required that you are
running CDE, OpenWindows, or another XWindows program such as KDE.

Solaris probes the serial ports during boot, and during this
process, it toggles some handshaking lines used by dumb UPSes. As a
result, particularly for simple signalling "dumb" UPSes it seems to
kick it into a mode that makes the UPS think it's either in a
calibration run, or some self-test mode. Since at this point we are
really not communicating with the UPS, it's pretty hard to tell
what happened. But it's easy to prevent this, and you should.
Disconnect the UPS, and boot the system. When you get to a login
prompt, log in as root. Type the following command:

eeprom com1-noprobe=true

or

eeprom com2-noprobe=true

depending on which com port your UPS is attached to. Then sync and
shutdown the system normally, reattach the UPS, and reboot. This
should solve the problem. However, we have some reports that recent
versions of Solaris (7 & 8) appear to have removed this eeprom
option and there seems to be no way to suppress the serial port
probing during boot.

At this point, you should have a complete installation. The daemon
will load automatically at the next boot. Watch for any error
messages during boot, and check the event logs in /etc/apcupsd. If
everything looks OK, you can try testing the package by removing
power from the UPS. NOTE! if you have a voltage-signalling UPS,
please run the first power tests with your computer plugged into
the wall rather than into the UPS. This is because dumb serial-port
UPSes have a tendency to power off if your configuration or cable
are not correct.

As a user, your input is very helpful in solving problems with the
package, and providing suggestions and future directions for the
development of the package. We are striving to provide a useful
package that works across all platforms, and welcome your
feedback.

During the './configure', if apcupsd does not find one of the systems for
which it has specific installation programs, it will set the
Operating System to unknown and will use the incomplete
installation scripts that are in platforms/unknown. You
will be on your own, or you can ask the developers list
(apcupsd-users@lists.sourceforge.net) for installation
instructions. This directory also contains a hint file for Linux
From Scratch, which could be helpful for other systems as well.

Once you have installed apcupsd,
either from a binary package or by building from source, your next
step should be to inspect your /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf file to
make sure it is valid.

You can read the complete reference on configuration directives
(Configuration Directive Reference), but if you are
setting up a normal standalone configuration you should only need
to check (and possibly fix) the first three items listed below.

Your UPSTYPE should be the UPS's protocol type: dumb, apcsmart,
usb, net, pcnet, or snmp. Your UPSCABLE should be the type of cable
you are using.

DEVICE should be set to the path of the device node
(usually in /dev) to use to communicate with the UPS. This is used primarily
for serial port connections. If you have a USB device, it is better not to
specify a DEVICE directive by leaving it black or commenting it out.
Apcupsd will automatically search for your device in the standard places.
If you specify a DEVICE, it should be the name of the device that
apcupsd is to use to communicate with the UPS.

If the first time you execute apcupsd, you get a message to the
effect that the Apcupsd USB driver is missing, it means that you
most likely forgot to put --enable-usb on your './configure'
command line.

The Configuration Examples chapter of this manual provides
the essential characteristics of each main type of configuration
file. After those elements are correct, apcupsd should run, and
then it is only a matter of customization of your setup.

The final consideration for a automatic reboot after a full power down
is to ensure that your computer will automatically reboot when the
power is restored.

This is not the normal behavior of most computers as shipped from
the factory. Normally after the power is cut and restored, you must
explicitly press a button for the power to actually be turned on.
You can test your computer by powering it down; shutting off the
power (pull the plug); then plugging the cord back in. If your
computer immediately starts up, good. There is nothing more to do.

If your computer does not start up, manually turn on the power (by
pressing the power on button) and enter your computer's SETUP
program (often by pressing DEL during the power up sequence;
sometimes by pressing F10). You must then find and change the
appropriate configuration parameter to permit instant power on.

Normally, this is located under the BOOT menu item, and will be
called something such as Restore on AC/Power Loss or Full-On.
The exact words will vary according to the ROM BIOS provider.
Generally you will have three options: Last State, Power On,
and Power Off. Although Last State should normally work, we
recommend setting your computers to Power On. This means that
whenever the power is applied they are on. The only way to shut
them off is to pull the plug or to have a special program that
powers them off (/sbin/poweroff on Linux systems).

If after making all the changes suggested above, you cannot get
your computer to automatically reboot, you might examine your halt
script (/etc/rc.d/init.d/halt in the case of Red Hat Linux) and see
if the final line that performs the halt or reboot contains the
-p option for powering down the computer. It should not with the
logic used by apcupsd, but if it does, the -p option could cause
your computer to power off while the UPS is still suppling power
(i.e. before the UPS kills the power). Depending on the setting of
your BIOS, it may prevent your computer from restarting when the
power returns. As already mentioned, this should not apply, but in
case of problems it is worth a try.

The simplest way to invoke apcupsd is from the command line by entering:

/sbin/apcupsd

To do so, you must be root. However, normally, you will want
apcupsd started automatically when your system boots. On some
systems with installation support (e.g. SUSE and Red Hat), the
installation procedure will create a script file that you will be
automatically invoked when your system reboots. On other systems,
you will have to invoke apcupsd from your rc.local script.

On Red Hat systems, this script file that automatically invokes
apcupsd on system start and stops is /etc/rc.d/init.d/apcupsd

To start apcupsd manually (as you will probably do immediately
following the installation), enter the following:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/apcupsd start

To understand how this file is automatically invoked at system
startup and shutdown, see the man pages for chkconfig(8).

On SUSE systems, the script file that automatically invokes apcupsd
on system start and stops is /etc/rc.d/apcupsd.

To start apcupsd manually (as you will probably do immediately
following the installation), enter the following:

/etc/rc.d/apcupsd start

Normally, when properly installed, apcupsd will be started and
stopped automatically by your system. Unfortunately, the details
are different for each system. Below, we give the commands for
selected systems. Alternatively, there are simple stopapcupsd and
startapcupsd scripts in the examples directory, or you can modify
one of the scripts in the distributions directory to meet your
needs.

To stop apcupsd you can do the following:

On Red Hat systems:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/apcupsd stop

On SUSE systems:

/etc/rc.d/apcupsd stop

Please see the Testing Apcupsd chapter for more details on insuring
that apcupsd is running properly.

Notice that we have not specified a device. In doing so, apcupsd
will try all the well known USB ports. We strongly recommend you
use this (empty device address) form unless you have a good reason
to do otherwise.

Please use the explicit specifications of a device only if you know
exactly what you are doing. In general, it is much easier to let
apcupsd find the device itself.

Please see USB Configuration for detailed help
on setting up your system to work with a USB UPS.

If you have a simple signaling
or dumb UPS such as a BackUPS, you will need to know exactly what
cable you have and specify it on the UPSCABLE directive. Please see
the list of UPSes versus cables in the beginning of this document
for more information. The cable number is normally stamped in the
plastic at one end of the cable. If you specify the wrong cable, it
is very likely that at the first power failure, your computer will
be immediately shutdown. This is an unfortunate consequence of the
dumb signaling mode. To avoid this, first replace
/etc/apcupsd/apccontrol with safe.apccontrol found in the
examples directory, then test until everything works correctly.
Once you have the correct cable, be sure to remember to reinstall
the correct apccontrol file and test that your computer is
correctly shutdown during a power failure.

If your cable does not have low battery detection, as is the case
with some older models, you will also need to define TIMEOUT nnn
where you set nn to be the number of seconds on a power failure
after which a shutdown is effected.

Normally you would have many more configuration directives to
completely customize your installation, but this example shows you
the minimum required.

NIS (Network Information Server) mode allows for communication
between instances of apcupsd running on different hosts. Only one
of those hosts, the server, needs to talk to the UPS directly. The
others, clients, obtain information about the state of the UPS by
querying the server. NIS is not related to Sun's NIS/YP
services.

NIS clients and servers require that apcupsd be compiled with the
Net Driver --enable-net. This is typically enabled by default.

The NIS server is connected to the UPS and should be configured
exactly as a standalone configuration, but with NETSERVER on.
In all other respects, the server should be configured in
standalone mode. You may also set the NIS server specific options
NISIP to restrict which IP address of the server which apcupsd
listens on. The default, 0.0.0.0, means to list on all of the
server host's IP addresses; NISPORT (default 3551) to set which
TCP port the server listens on; and EVENTSFILE and
EVENTSFILEMAX to provide information about the last few events
to clients. You may also need to modify your firewall rules on the
server's host to allow traffic to the NISPORT.

For the NIS client computer, you will have a configuration that
looks something like what follows. What is important is that you
get the information from an UPSCABLE ether with UPSTYPE
net over the network and you must specify the address of
a NIS server using DEVICE. The client apcupsd will then poll
the NIS server specified in DEVICE every POLLTIME seconds
(formerly NETTIME).

The DEVICE is set to server-address:port, where
server-address is the fully qualified domain name or IP address
of the apcupsd NIS server, and port is the NISPORT that the
server is listening on. The default is 3551, but older versions of
apcupsd used port 7000.

If you set POLLTIME too large, your client may not see the
change in state of the NIS server before the server has shutdown.
Normally, you have at least 30 seconds of grace time between the
time the NIS server decides to shutdown and the time it no longer
responds. Your slave must poll during this interval.

Any client run using the Net driver will shutdown when its own
timers expire or when the NIS server shuts down, whichever occurs
first. This means that if you want the slave to shutdown before the
server, you need only set BATTERYLEVEL, MINUTES or
TIMEOUT on the client for a faster shutdown than the values
defined on the NIS server. This can often be useful if the slave is
less important than the master and you wish to reduce battery power
consumption so that the master can remain up longer during a power
outage.

NIS clients work principally by reading the STATFLAG record that is
sent by the NIS server (present in the output of apcaccess). The
low 16 bits are the standard APC status flag, and the upper 16 bits
represent the internal state of apcupsd, so the slave can see when
the power fails and know when to shutdown.

It would be possible to have a client also work as a server, but
that would increase the delay of information getting from the UPS
to the secondary client.

The difference between the NIS mode and the removed master/slave
mode is that the NIS server has no explicit knowledge of the
slaves. The NIS server makes its information available via the net
(NIS), and the NIS slaves read it. When the NIS server is going to
shutdown, it makes the information available to any NIS slave that
polls it, but the NIS server does not explicitly call each NIS
slave as is the case in the Master/Slave networking described
several sections above.

Think of the difference as push (Master/Slave) vs. pull
(NIS-based). In the case of M/S, the master makes all the shutdown
decisions and notifies the slaves when they are to shut down or
when some other interesting event happens. The slaves just do
whatever the master says, whenever the master says to. On the other
hand, with the NIS-based network config you basically "publish" the
UPS status from one server and then your clients view that status
and make their own decisions.

As of 3.14, Apcupsd supports the PowerChute Network Shutdown
protocol. This is an alternative to SNMP for use with APC's AP9617
family of network smartslot modules. Note that the older AP9606
modules do not support PCNET.

To enable PCNET support, configure with the --enable-pcnet
flag. This is typically enabled by default.

The DEVICE setting specifies the IP address of the UPS as well
as the username and authentication passphrase to use. Note that the
username and passphrase are not the Web/SNMP login credentials.
They are separate settings. The default username on a new card is
"apc" and the default passphrase is "admin user phrase". To change
the passphrase, log in to the Web UI and go to the UPS tab, then to
PowerChute -> Configuration. (This assumes firmware v3.3.1. Other
versions may place the setting elsewhere.) The password must be a
minimum of 15 characters long. The web UI will silently ignore
shorter passwords and does not give an error message. There is no
apparent way to change the username.

Note that you may leave DEVICE blank and Apcupsd will accept
information from any PCNET UPS on the network,
however it will be very insecure since an attacker could easily send packets
crafted to cause your server to shut down.
Using the ipaddr, user, and passphrase will prevent this behavior.

You may need to take steps to ensure networking stays active during
your OS's shutdown sequence in order for the PCNET driver to power
off the UPS (the so-called "killpower" operation). On a Linux
distro, you can use commands such as...

MODBUS is APC's replacement for the aging 'apcsmart' (aka UPS-Link)
protocol. It is recommended for modern (ex: SMT series) Smart-UPS models.
As of 3.14.11, apcupsd supports the MODBUS protocol over RS232 serial
interfaces. As of 3.14.13, apcupsd supports the MODBUS protocol over USB.

Not all APC UPSes support MODBUS. New 2013 year Smart-UPS models are likely to
support it out-of-the-box and firmware updates are available for some older
models. APC/Schneider tech support is your best point of contact for determining
if a certain model will support MODBUS. That said, APC knowledge base article
FA164737 indicates MODBUS support is available for the majority of the SMC,
SMT, and SMX model lines.

The DEVICE setting can be left blank or, optionally, set to the serial
number of the UPS. If DEVICE is blank, apcupsd will attach to the first
APC UPS it finds, otherwise it will attach to the specific UPS identified by
the serial number.

Note that most UPSes ship with MODBUS support disabled by default. You must
use the UPS's front panel menu to enable MODBUS protocol support before apcupsd
will be able to communicate with the UPS. You may need to enable the "Advanced"
menu option before the MODBUS protocol option will be visible.

The following testing procedures apply for the
most part to SmartUPSes, whether USB or serial. If you have a
dumb voltage-signalling UPS, your testing procedures will be
somewhat different, and you should see the section on Testing
Serial UPSes (see Testing Serial-Line UPSes).

This indicates that apcupsd is up and running and has started the
two standard threads in addition to the main thread.

If you see only one instance of apcupsd running, don't worry about
it as this is normal on most non-Linux systems, and on Linux 2.6.x
kernels.

If you do not find that apcupsd is in the above list, the most
likely problem is a configuration file glitch. If no messages were
printed, you should check your system log (normally
/var/log/messages) where you will find one or messages indicating
the nature of the problem.

Once you have established that the proper processes are running, do
a tail of the system log file, normally /var/log/messages:

tail /var/log/messages

You should see output that looks similar to the following:

Dec 5 17:01:05 matou apcupsd[5917]: apcupsd 3.7.2 startup succeeded

These messages should also appear in the temporary file
(/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.events) if you are using the default
configuration file. If you have installed the RPM, they will
probably be in /var/log/apcupsd.events.

This test consists of running apcaccess to see if apcupsd is properly
updating its internal variables. Please note that you must enable
the apcupsd Network Information Server in your configuration file
for apcaccess to work. This is done by setting:

NETSERVER on
NISPORT 3551

in your apcupsd.conf file.

To run the apcaccess test, use the following command:

apcaccess status

Depending on the type of UPS you have, you will get slightly
different output, but an example For a Smart-UPS is as follows:

If you see the above output, it is a good sign that apcupsd is
working. Assuming that the output looks reasonable, check the
following variables:

LINEV

This is the line voltage and it should be a value
that is appropriate for your equipment. In the USA, it is typically
about 120 Volts while in Europe, it is about 220 Volts.

BATTV

Unless you have additional battery packs, this
should be near 24 Volts plus or minus 5 Volts.

STATUS

This is the status of the UPS and it should
normally be ONLINE.

A very disturbing tendance is for some of the newer (Mar 2004) RS
and ES UPSes to have no Voltage information. This is an annoying bug,
but not serious. On the other hand, some of those UPSes now have no
battery charge information BCHARGE. If BCHARGE is zero in your
listing and you are running a Smart or a USB UPS, then you will
have to set the BATTERYLEVEL directive in your apcupsd.conf file to
-1.

It means that you have probably not enabled the Network Information
Server in your configuration file for apcaccess to work. This is
done by setting NETSERVER and NISPORT in your apcupsd.conf file
as shown above.

At this point, you should ensure
that apcupsd is handling the connection to the UPS correctly. This
test assumes you have a UPS that speaks apcsmart protocol, over
either USB or a serial port. If you have an old-style
voltage-signaling UPS, please skip to the next section (Simulated
Power Fail Test).

When apcupsd detects a problem, it generates an EVENT, which
consists of sending a message to the system log then invoking the
apccontrol script (normally in /etc/acpupsd/apccontrol) to handle
the event.

In order to create an event, remove the serial port plug from the
back of your computer or from the back of the UPS. Within 6
seconds, apcupsd should detect the lack of serial port
communications and broadcast a wall message indicating that the
serial port communications was lost:

Warning communications lost with UPS lost.

At the same time, it sends the same message to the system log and
to the temporary EVENTS file (/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.events).

Plug the serial port plug back into your computer, and within about
12 seconds, apcupsd should reestablish communications and broadcast
and log the following message:

Communications with UPS restored.

If these messages are logged but not broadcast, either you have
your mesg permission set to no (see 'man wall' or 'man mesg'),
or there is a problem with apccontrol. If you are running a window
manager such as GNOME and don't have a console window open, you may
not receive the wall messages. However, you should find them in
your system log file (normally /var/log/messages) and in the
temporary EVENTS file, /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.events. For example, to
observe these events in the temporary EVENTS file, you might do a

tail -f /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.events

Note, if you have installed from the RPM, the proper events file
may be /var/log/apcupsd.events. You can find the actual filename by
checking your apcupsd.conf file before running the test.

If you do not observe these messages, you should correct this
problem before proceeding with additional tests.

At this point, you should
verify that in the event of a power fail apcupsd properly calls
apccontrol. This test is appropriate for all models of UPSes (smart
or dumb).

To avoid the possibility that apcupsd might shut down your system,
locate where apccontrol resides on your system (normally,
/etc/apcupsd/apccontrol. Move this script to another location e.g.
apccontrol.save and replace it with the script found in
examples/safe.apccontrol. When that is done, ensure that your UPS
battery is fully charged and that you have at least 5 minutes of
remaining runtime on the batteries. This can be done by examining
the values of the BATTCHG and TIMELEFT variables in the
printout of 'apcaccess status'.

Athough this should not be necessary, as an extra precaution, you
can shutdown your machine, remove the plug from the UPS you are
testing, and plug your machine into another UPS or directly into
the wall. Doing so, will ensure that the UPS doesn't cut the power
to your machine at a bad time. Remember at the end of the testing
to plug your machine back into the UPS.

You can also minimize the risk from an unexpected shutdown by using
a journaling filesystem such as Linux's EXT3. All modern disk
drives park themselves safely when they power down, rather than
ploughing up oxide on your disk's recording surface. Thus,
unexpected power less has to hit very narrow timing windows in
order to trash an EXT3 transaction.

To begin the test, pull the power plug from the UPS. The first time
that you do this, psychologically it won't be easy, but after you
have pulled the plug a few times, you may even come to enjoy it. If
all goes well, apcupsd should detect the power failure and print
several warning messages. The first should appear after 5 to 6
seconds and read:

Warning power loss detected.

Then generally 6 seconds later, apcupsd is sure that it isn't a
transient effect, so it sends:

Power failure. Running on UPS batteries.

After a few more seconds (total around 15 seconds), plug the power
cord back in and ensure that apcupsd is aware that the power has
returned. It should print:

Power has returned...

If you do not observe the above messages, please correct the
situation before proceeding. The most likely cause of problems
are:

apcupsd doesn't recognize the power failure because the
configuration directives are not correct. E.g. wrong cable.

The file /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol doesn't exist or is not marked
as executable.

This is an intermediate
test that you can do, for all UPS models before doing the Full
Power Down Test. First modify the /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol file so
that in the killpower case, the line that re-executes apcupsd
with the --killpower option is commented out. The original
line probably looks something like:

${APCUPSD} --killpower

when it is commented out, it looks like:

#${APCUPSD} --killpower

Now when you pull the power plug, and either the timer expires or
the batteries are exhausted (see the next section for more
details), the system should be fully shutdown.

After performing this test, please be sure to restore
/etc/apcupsd/apccontrol to its previous state.

To complete the testing, you should do a power fail shutdown of your
system. This test is applicable to all UPS models. Please do a
backup of your system or take other precautions before attempting
this to avoid the possibility of lost data due to a problem (I have
been through this at least 10 times and never once had problems,
but we all know that someday something will go wrong).

Before proceeding, please ensure that your halt script or the
equivalent has been properly updated by the install process to
contain the logic to call apcupsd --killpower or apccontrol killpower
when it detects a power failure situation (the presence of a /etc/powerfail
file). See the Building and Installing apcupsd section of this manual,
or the README files for additional details about the halt modifications
necessary.

When you are ready to do the test, either simply pull the plug and
wait for the batteries to become exhausted, or set the TIMEOUT
configuration directive to something like 60 so that the system
will shutdown before the batteries are exhausted. We recommend
doing the full shutdown without using TIMEOUT to correctly
simulate a real power failure, but the choice is yours (I did it
once here, but now use TIMEOUT 30).

If all goes well, your system should be shutdown before the
batteries are completely exhausted and the UPS should be powered
off by apcupsd. Please be aware that if you do the full power down,
you must ensure that your UPS is totally powered off. Otherwise, it
may have been given the command to power off, but due to a long
grace period it is still waiting. If you were to reboot your
computer during the grace period, the UPS could then suddenly turn
off the power (this happened to me). To avoid this problem, always
wait for your UPS to power itself off, or power if off manually
before restarting your computer. On my system, the UPS is
configured as at the factory to have a 180 second grace period
before shutting off the power. During this type of testing, 180
seconds seems like an eternity, so please take care to either
wait or manually power off your UPS. To determine what grace period
is programmed into your UPS EEPROM, run 'apcaccess eprom' and look
at the "Shutdown grace delay".

If you experienced so problems with
the above testing procedures, or if you are porting apcupsd to
another system, or you are simply curious, you may want to know
exactly what is going on during the shutdown process. If so, please
see the Shutdown Sequence section of this manual.

apctest is a program that allows you to talk
directly to your UPS and run certain low-level tests, adjust various settings
such as the battery installation date and alarm behavior, and perform a
battery runtime calibration. Here we describe how to use it for a SmartUPS
utilizing the apcsmart driver and RS232 serial connection.
The menus and options for USB, MODBUS, and simple signaling UPSes are different
but mostly self-explanatory.

Shutdown apcupsd if it is running. This is important. Only one program can
communicate with the UPS at a time and if apcupsd is running, apctest will fail
to contact the UPS.

Run apctest by invoking it with no arguments.

It will read your installed apcupsd.conf configuration (so it knows
where to find the UPS) and then it will present you with the
following output:

Item 1 will probe the UPS for all values known to apcupsd and
present them in rather raw format. This output can be useful for
providing technical support if you are having problems with your
UPS.

Item 2 will perform a Battery Runtime Calibration. This test will
only be performed if your battery is 100% charged. Running the test
will cause the batteries to be discharged to approximately 30% of
capacity. The exact number depends on the UPS model. In any case,
apctest will abort the test if it detects that the battery charge
is 20% or less.

The advantage of doing this test is that the UPS will be able to
recalibrate the remaining runtime counter that it maintains in its
firmware. As your batteries age, they tend to hold less of a
charge, so the runtime calibration may not be accurate after
several years.

We recommend that perform a Battery Calibration about once a year.
You should not perform this calibration too often since discharging
the batteries tends to shorten their lifespan.

Item 3 can be used to abort a Battery Calibration in progress, if
you some how became disconnected.

Item 4 can be used to restart the monitoring of a Battery
Calibration if you should some how become disconnected during the
test.

Item 6 will initiate a direct communication between your terminal
and the UPS, at which point you can enter raw UPS commands. Please
be aware that you should be careful what commands you enter because
you can cause your UPS to suddenly shutdown, or you can modify the
EEPROM in a way to disable your UPS. The details of the raw Smart
mode UPS commands can be found in the APC Smart Protocol
chapter of this manual.

After you have verified
that your UPS is working correctly, you will probably want to query
the state of its health occasionally. The tools apcupsd gives you
to do this include one command-line utility (apcaccess) and a GUI
you can use through a Web browser. You can also use apctest to tune
some parameters of the UPS itself.

apcaccess is a program (normally found in
/sbin/apcaccess) that permits you to print out the complete status
of your UPS.

apcaccess will use the Network Information Server to obtain the
necessary information. You
can specify a second optional argument to apcaccess in the form of
host:port where the :port is optional. The default is
localhost:3551. Please note that in versions prior to 3.10.6, the
default NIS port was 7000, so if you are mixing versions, you will
need to take a lot of care to ensure that all components are using
the same port.

To enable the apcupsd Network Information Server, which is normally
the default, you set:

NETSERVER on
NISPORT 3551

in your apcupsd.conf file.

The full form of the apcaccess command is:

apcaccess status localhost:3551

where only apcaccess status should normally be needed. localhost
may be replaced by any machine name, fully qualified domain name,
or IP address, which means that apcaccess can access any UPS on the
network running the Network Information Server.

The status command line option of apcaccess will produce a full
printout of all the STATUS variables used by apcupsd. This can
be very helpful for checking the condition of your UPS and to know
whether or not apcupsd is properly connected to it.

Please note that if you invoke apcaccess within the first 30
seconds of launching apcupsd, you will likely get an error message
such as:

For the various smaller, cheaper APC USB UPSes, such as the CS, ES,
..., you will get much of the information that is presented above,
but not all of it. For example, you will not get MAXLINEV,
MINLINEV, LINEFREQ, ... and in particular, the LOADPCT will be zero
when you are running on mains. LOADPCT will display when the UPS is
on batteries. You must remember that the non-SmartUPSes are much
simpler (and less expensive) and therefore produce less
information.

When a major event is
generated within apcupsd, control is passed to the script
apccontrol normally found in /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol. The event
name, and a number of other important parameters are passed to the
script.

The major function of the apccontrol script is to perform a
shutdown of the system (as well as the killpower operation). In
addition, another major task for this script is to notify you by
email when certain events such as powerfail occur.

Since apccontrol is a script, you can customize it to your own
needs using any text editor. To do so, you must have a minimal
knowledge of Unix shell programming. In addition, another feature
is that you can write your own scripts that will be automatically
called by apccontrol before any of its own code is executed.
Details of the events and how to program them are contained in the
Advanced topics section entitled Customizing Event Handling.

There are four CGI programs (multimon.cgi, upsstats.cgi, upsfstats.cgi, and
upsimage.cgi). To have them properly installed, you must run the
'./configure' command with --enable-cgi and you should
specify an installation directory with --with-cgi-bin= or
load them manually. The default directory for installation of the
CGI programs is /etc/apcupsd, which is not really where you want
them if you are going to use them. Normally, they should go in the
cgi-bin of your Web server.

Once built and loaded, they will give you the status of your UPS or
UPSes via a web browser.

Normally only multimon.cgi is directly invoked by the user.
However, it is possible to directly invoke upsstats.cgi and
upsfstats.cgi. upsimage.cgi should never be directly invoked as it
is used by upsstats.cgi to produce the bar charts.

Before using multimon and the other CGI programs, first ensure that
apcupsd is configured to run the Network Information Server. This
is done by setting NETSERVER on in /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf.
This switch is on by default.

Next you must edit the hosts file /etc/apcupsd/hosts.conf and at
the end, add the name of the hosts you want to monitor and a label
string for them. For example:

matou, polymatou, and deuter are the network names of the three
machines currently running apcupsd. Please note that the network
names may either be IP addresses or fully qualified domain names.
The network name (or IP address) may optionally be followed by
:port, where the port is the NIS port address you wish to use.
This is useful if you are running multiple copies of apcupsd on the
same system or if you are running in a mixed vendor environment
where the NIS port assignments differ. An example could be the
following:

where the USB copy of apcupsd has been configured to use port 7001 by
modifying apcupsd.conf. Note, the default NIS port is 3551 on most
platforms.

To test multimon.cgi, you can execute it as non-root directly from
the source cgi build directory. To do so, enter at a shell prompt:

./multimon.cgi

If everything is set up correctly, it will print a bunch of HTML
with the values of the machines that you have put in the hosts.conf
file. It should look something like the following (note, only a
small portion of the output is reproduced here):

If you do not get similar output, check the permissions of the
/etc/apcupsd directory and of those of /etc/apcupsd/hosts.conf to
ensure that your web server can access it. At many sites, the Apache
server is not running as root, so you must be
careful to ensure that that /etc/apcupsd/hosts.conf and
/etc/apcupsd/multimon.conf are world readable.

To invoke multimon in your Web browser, enter:

http://your-site/cgi-bin/multimon.cgi

You should get something similar to the screen shot shown below.

If you wish additional control over the colors, type faces, and
sizes of the multimon output, you may simply edit the apcupsd.css
file to specify the styles you prefer.

The CGI programs compiled for Windows are included in the Windows package
starting with apcupsd-3.14.7.

The CGI programs included with the Windows package are intended
to be run on Windows. If your web server is running on Linux or another
operating system, you will need to obtain binary packages for that platform
(or build them from source) instead. The windows build of the CGI programs has
been tested with the Apache web server for Win32. They should also work with MS
Internet Information Server (IIS).

To use the programs, copy the contents of the cgi/ directory from your
apcupsd installation directory to the cgi-bin/ directory of your web server.
Consult your web server's documentation for how to enable CGI programs to be
executed. Sometimes special security settings are required.

Configure the hosts.conf file as described above. The programs expect to find
the hosts.conf file and the apcupsd.css file in the directory
\apcupsd\etc\apcupsd on the same drive letter as the web server's
cgi-bin directory. If you installed apcupsd into C:\apcupsd (the
default) and your web server's cgi-bin/ directory is also located on the
C: drive, no further changes are necessary. If you installed apcupsd into a
different directory or your web server cgi-bin is on another drive, you will
need to relocate hosts.conf and apcupsd.css from the apcupsd install
location to \apcupsd\etc\apcupsd on the appropriate drive.

It is possible to run the CGI code to monitor your
UPS using the answerbook HTTP server that runs on Solaris. As long
as your server has the Answerbook2 web server installed and
running, you can insert the cgi scripts into the cgi directory of
the web server, and access the cgi using something like:

Many thanks go to Russell Kroll rkroll@exploits.org who wrote
the CGI programs to work with his UPS Monitoring system named
Network UPS Tools (NUT). Thanks also to Jonathan Benson
jbenson@technologist.com for initially
adapting the upsstatus.cgi program to work with apcupsd.

We have enhanced the bar graph program and hope that our changes
can be useful to the original author in his project.

If you have NETSERVER ON in your apcupsd.conf file (which is
the default), be aware that anyone on the network can read the
status of your UPS. This may or may not pose a problem. If you
don't consider this information privileged, as is the case for
many, there is little risk. In addition, if you have a perimeter
firewall or NATting router with typical settings only users on your
local network access to your UPS information. You may also restrict
access using using firewall settings (see below) or TCP Wrappers
(see below).

If you are running apcupsd as an NIS server, you will need to
ensure that the clients can reach it by opening up NISPORT
(default: TCP 3551) on any firewall running on the server. You may
wish to configure your firewall(s) to only allow connections from
your local network or specifically from the masters, slaves, and
servers as needed.

If your operating system does not support a host based firewall (a
firewall running on the local machine) then you may try to get some
of the functionality of such a firewall with TCP Wrappers. As of
apcupsd version 3.8.2, TCP Wrappers are implemented if you turn
them on when configuring ./configure --with-libwrap. With
this code enabled, you may control who may access your apcupsd via
TCP connections (the Network Information Server). This control is
done by modifying the file: /etc/hosts.allow. This code is
implemented but untested. If you use it, please send us some
feedback.

If you have a SmartUPS, there
are depending on the UPS at least 12 different values stored in the
EEPROM that determine how the UPS reacts to various conditions such
as high line voltage, low line voltage, power down grace periods,
etc.

In general, for the moment, we do not recommend that you change
your EEPROM values unless absolutely necessary. There have been
several reported cases of problems setting the Low Transfer
Voltage. Consequently, if at all possible, do not attempt to change
this value.

To make the EEPROM changes with apctest you must first stop the
apcupsd daemon. After apcupsd is stopped you may invoke apctest (as root).

We recommend that you change the EEPROM as little as is absolutely
necessary since it is a somewhat delicate process that has
occasionally produced problems (i.e. improper EEPROM values are
displayed after the update).

apctest will present a menu of options which are generally self-explanatory.
Note that USB connections will show a difference set of options than
smart serial connections.

Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) batteries, otherwise known as Valve Regulated Lead Acid
(VRLA) batteries, were originally known as "dry batteries". When first
introduced in the 1950s, they used a gel electrolyte. The otherwise free acid
was immobilised with a fine silica powder and formed a gel substance.

In the 1970s the technology moved to Absorbed Glass Mat (AGM) where the
separators between the lead plates are made of highly porous micro-fine glass
fibres which absorb and immobilise the acid and prevent it from spilling. A
crack or hole in the casing of a VRLA battery using AGM technology will not
result in a measurable electrolyte spill. Spill containment with VRLA batteries
is therefore not meaningful or appropriate.

AGM has became the preferred VRLA technology for use in standby or float
applications and is used in UPSes in the telecommunications, power, and many
other mission critical industries where the power supply must not be
interrupted. APC UPSes use VRLA batteries. VRLA batteries are designed to
recombine hydrogen and oxygen and emit only extremely small amounts of
hydrogen under normal operating conditions. Normal room ventilation is
sufficient to remove any hydrogen, so special ventilation is not required.

Most brand name UPS batteries should last 3-5 years. Some APC Back-UPS models
may have a shorter battery life expectancy. Refer to the user's manual of your
APC Back-UPS to determine the exact battery life expectancy or contact APC
Technical Support.

Below are some APC guidelines for ensuring optimum battery life expectancy:

Make sure that you keep your APC UPS in a cool, dry location with plenty of ventilation. Ideally, the temperature where your UPS is kept should not exceed 75 Deg F (24 Deg C). Also, for ventilation purposes, leave roughly one to two inches on each side for proper airflow.

The optimum operating temperature for a lead acid battery is 25 Deg C (77 Deg F). Elevated temperature reduces longevity. As a guideline, every 8 Deg C (15 Deg F) rise in temperature will cut the battery life in half. A battery which would last for 6 years at 25 Deg C (77 Deg F), will only be good for 3 years if operated at 33 Deg C (95 Deg F). Keep in mind that the battery temperature inside your UPS will always be warmer than the ambient temperature of the location where the UPS is installed.

Only perform runtime calibrations on your UPS one or two times a year, if necessary. Some of our customers want to check their systems to verify that their runtime is sufficient. However, consistently performing these calibrations can significantly decrease the life expectancy of your battery.

Do not store batteries for extended periods of time. New batteries can be stored for 6 to 12 months from date of purchase. After this period, the battery should be used or it will lose a great deal of its charge. It is not advisable to store batteries that have already been in use.

Do not exceed 80 percent of a UPS unit's rated capacity due to the reduction in run time. When you increase your load, your runtime decreases. In the event of a utility power failure, a UPS loaded to full capacity will drain and discharge it's battery quickly and will decrease the life expectancy.

The Smart-UPS detects line voltage distortions such as spikes, notches, dips,
and swells, as well as distortions caused by operation with inexpensive
fuel-powered generators. By default, the UPS reacts to distortions by
transferring to on-battery operation to protect the equipment that you are
plugging into the UPS. Where power quality is poor, the UPS may frequently
transfer to on-battery operation. Battery longevity and service life of the
UPS may be conserved by reducing the sensitivity of the UPS, as long as your
equipment can operate normally under the conditions detailed below. Any type
of voltage disturbance includes; High/Low/No RMS Voltage, Total Harmonic
Distortion(THD), Change in Voltage over Time(dv/dt), Frequency (Hz) out of
tolerance.

High Sensitivity Mode

In the event of any type of voltage disturbance, the UPS will transfer to
battery power and watch the AC line until it can transfer back to line. The
transfer time in this mode depends on how far the line voltage deviates from
the sinewave reference.

Medium Sensitivity Mode

In the event of a RMS voltage-out-of-tolerance(High/Low/No) and
RMS-rate-of-change disturbances(dv/dt) in the line voltage, the UPS will
transfer to battery power and watch the AC line until it can transfer back to
line. In this mode the transfer times are longer but still within acceptable
limits to insure the continuity of a computer's operation.

Low Sensitivity Mode

In the event of a RMS voltage-out-of-tolerance disturbances(High/Low/No)
in the line voltage, the UPS will transfer to battery power and watch the
AC line until it can transfer back to line. In this mode the transfer times
are longer but still within acceptable limits to insure the continuity of a
computer's operation.

To change the sensitivity of the UPS, press the small, white "sensitivity"
button on the rear of the UPS. Use a pointed object (such as a pen) to do so.
The default setting is "high"; press the button once to set the sensitivity to
"medium", and press it again to set it to "low"; pressing it a third time will
set it back to "high". The sensitivity setting change will take effect
immediately. The green LED next to the button is a sensitivity setting
indicator - brightly lit is "high" sensitivity, dimly lit is "medium", and
off is "low" sensitivity.

The battery charge graph LEDs on the front panel of a Smart-UPS will flash
in unison when the UPS is operating online and the runtime remaining
(calculated by the Smart-UPS microprocessor) is less than two minutes
more than the low battery signal warning time (minimum of two minutes).

This would usually indicate that you need to either decrease the load
or install new batteries. If the batteries are new, then you need to perform
a runtime calibration (see below).

At a pinch, you could also decrease the low battery warning time. There are
four possible settings: 2, 5, 7, or 10 minutes.

If you own your UPS for long enough, you will inevitably need to replace
the UPS battery or battery cartridge. An APC battery cartridge comprises
two batteries physically stuck together with double-sided tape and wired
in series.

After the decision to replace the batteries, you will face
another decision almost immediately: whether to purchase genuine APC
replacement batteries or not. There are pros and cons to purchasing
genuine replacement APC batteries.

APC Battery Pros

APC batteries are supported by APC

APC batteries come with all the necessary hardware

APC batteries come as pre-made cartridges

APC batteries will physically fit your UPS

APC Battery Cons

APC batteries cost up to 4 times the cost of third party batteries

There are also pros and cons to purchasing third party batteries.

Third Party Battery Pros

A third party battery may cost up to 1/4 the price of APC batteries

A third party battery may have a higher capacity for the same physical size

You will need to create your own battery cartridges (with double-sided tape)

You will need to ensure the third party battery is the right physical size

You will need to ensure the third party battery is the right capacity

Use of a third party battery will void APC's Equipment Protection Policy

Use of a third party battery may void UL, CSA, VDE, and other safety certifications (according to APC)

If you do decide to use third party replacement batteries, please do not
choose the cheapest available generic SLA batteries. These batteries will,
almost without exception, not last as long as brand name
batteries and will need replacing within 12-18 months instead of 3-5 years.
Even when using brand name replacement batteries, make sure that you choose
the UPS version (aka "standby") which may cost slightly more,
but which will last significantly longer in typical UPS usage (long periods
of standby punctuated with infrequent deep discharges).

The brands of battery found in genuine APC battery cartridges have included:
Panasonic and B&B Battery (aka Best & Best Battery and BB Battery). Yuasa
(aka Genesis) is also a recommended brand, albeit a bit on the pricey side.

Note: When substituting a third party battery with a higher capacity than
the original, make sure that it still physically fits in the UPS casing. If the
battery does not fit, do not be tempted to install it "externally". The UPS
may not be able to charge it in a timely manner and/or it may damage the UPS
charging circuitry without appropriate modifications which are generally
beyond an end user's capability.

Although you can do a hot swap of your batteries while the computer and
any other connected equipment is running, it may not be very satisfactory
because the UPS will not always detect that the batteries have been swapped
and apcupsd will continue to report "Low Battery".

There are several ways to correct this situation:

1. If you have a "smart" UPS model, you can force a self-test to make the
UPS notice that the battery has been replaced.

2. If after a self-test, the UPS does not detect that the battery has been
replaced, you can use apctest to do a soft battery runtime calibration.
For details of doing this, refer to the "Soft" Runtime Calibration section
below.

3. If after the soft battery runtime recalibration, the UPS does not detect
that the battery has been replaced, you will need to do a manual battery
runtime calibration. For details of doing this, refer to the "Manual" Runtime
Calibration section below.

A runtime calibration causes the UPS to recalculate its available runtime
capacity based on its current load.

Caution: a runtime calibration will deeply discharge the UPS batteries, which
can leave a UPS temporarily unable to support its equipment if a utility power
failure occurs. Frequent calibrations reduce the life of batteries. APC
recommends performing a runtime calibration only annually, semiannually, or
whenever the load on the UPS is increased.

In order to perform a "soft" runtime calibration it is necessary to wait for
the UPS to recharge its batteries to 100% capacity. Once this has been done,
you can then initiate a runtime calibration through apctest.

APC Documentation Notes:

1. In order for the calibration to be accurate, the output load has to be more
than 40% (some APC documentation recommends at least 30%). Also, it
is advisable not to increase or reduce the load when the UPS is calibrating
its run time.

2. Under no circumstances should the UPS be turned off during a run time
calibration procedure! Once initiated, the calibration must be allowed to run
until completion.

3. The run time calibration procedure is not necessary nor advisable for a new
UPS. Only old UPSes with batteries that are not subject to discharge for long
periods of time should be allowed to perform a run time calibration.

4. Matrix-UPS and Smart-UPS recalculate the runtime-related parameters every
time the UPS goes on battery.

When doing a runtime calibration with "older" batteries, APC Technical Support
recommend doing a complete discharge and recharge first.

If you have "dumb" UPS (aka simple signalling) like a Back-UPS, then your only
option is to do a manual runtime calibration.

Most of the information in this section is taken from APC's website.
Any non-APC additions have been inserted in square brackets.

For a "smart" or "smart signalling" Back-UPS Pro or Smart-UPS:

Perform a Runtime Calibration. This is a manual procedure and
should not be confused with the runtime calibration performed
through PowerChute plus [or apctest]. The batteries inside of the
Smart-UPS are controlled by a microprocessor within the UPS.
Sometimes it is necessary to reset this microprocessor, especially
after the installation of new batteries. Stop the PowerChute plus
[or apcupsd] software from running and disconnect the serial cable.
There must be at least a 30% load attached to the UPS during this
procedure, but the process will cause the UPS to shut off and cut
power to its outlets. Therefore, attach a non-critical load to the
UPS and then force the UPS on battery by disconnecting it from
utility power [suggest not disconnecting, but simply turning off
utility power thereby preserving earthing]. Allow the unit to
run on battery until it turns off completely. Make sure a 30% load
is present! Plug the UPS back into the wall outlet [switch utility
power back on] and allow it to recharge (it will recharge more quickly
turned off and with no load present). Once the unit has recharged,
the "runtime remaining" calculation should be more accurate.
Remember that if the unit is an older model, then the runtime will
not improve significantly.

Background:

An APC Smart-UPS has a microprocessor which calculates runtime
primarily based on the load attached to the UPS and on its battery
capacity. On the right side of the front display panel there is a
vertical graph of five LEDs. Each LED is an indication of battery
charge in increments of twenty percent: 20, 40, 60, 80, 100%
(bottom to top). For example, if the battery charge is 99%, then
only four of the five LEDs are illuminated.

To ensure that an operating system receives a graceful shutdown
when using PowerChute plus or a SmartSlot accessory, an alert is
generated by the Smart-UPS indicating that the UPS has reached a
low battery condition. The alert is audible (rapid beeping), visual
(flashing battery LED or LEDs), and readable through the graphical
interface of PowerChute plus software (or a native UPS shutdown
program within a particular operating system.) In order to
calculate this "low battery condition," all Smart-UPS products have
a preconfigured low battery signal warning time of two minutes
(this is the factory default setting). There are a total of four
user-changeable settings: 2, 5, 7, or 10 minutes. If the low
battery signal warning time is set for 2 minutes, then the alerts
will activate simultaneously two minutes prior to shutdown.
Similarly, if the total runtime for a particular UPS is 30 minutes
with a low battery signal warning time set at 10 minutes, then the
UPS will run on battery for 20 minutes before the low battery alert
begins.

Total runtime is primarily based on two factors, battery capacity
and UPS load. UPS load and runtime on battery are inversely
proportional: as load increases, battery runtime decreases and vice
versa. When utility power is lost, the UPS begins discharging the
battery in order to support the attached load. Once power returns,
the Smart-UPS will automatically begin to recharge its battery.

For a Matrix UPS:

It is unnecessary to subject a battery bank to an excessively long
calibration. Remove battery packs or increase the load (space heaters
are good dummy loads) to obtain a reasonable time length for the
calibration (under an hour if possible).

At the start of a calibration, the Matrix microprocessor saves the
Estimated Run Time displayed.

The unit will then go to battery power until the capacity is 25%. After
this run time has been completed, the original Estimated Run Time is compared
with the actual run time. It will then increase or decrease this value to
correspond to the new run time achieved. If, at any time during the discharge,
one of the following rules is violated the calibration will be aborted or
corrupted:

Battery capacity must be 100% at start of calibration (all packs must indicated as float).

The UPS must be allowed to run down to 25% battery capacity. PowerChute [or apcupsd] and Accessories must be removed since they can abort the calibration prematurely.

For a "dumb" or "simple signalling" UPS (eg a Back-UPS):

This could be done if you have changed your equipment load or battery.
Stop the PowerChute [or apcupsd] software from running; disconnect the
serial cable between the computer and UPS. Next unplug the UPS from the
wall [suggest not disconnecting but simply turning off the utility power
thereby preserving the earthing] and let it run on battery until it
reaches low battery. Once it reaches low battery plug it back into
the wall outlet [turn the utility power back on] and let it recharge.
Recharge time can take up to 4 hours.

In some cases none of the battery runtime calibration methods result in
the UPS reporting a reasonably correct battery runtime. It has been
speculated that this is because the battery constant value has drifted
so far from normal that the microprocessor in the UPS cannot correct it.

The good news is that if you are located in the USA, all you have to do
is contact APC Technical Support and they will send you a serial port
dongle which plugs into the serial port of your UPS and reprograms the
battery constant value for you to the correct value.

The bad news is that for many users outside the USA, this service does not
appear to be available. It is, however, recommended that you first try
contacting APC Technical Support to verify the correct battery constant
value. The APC representatives in the Support Forum on the APC website
are also very helpful in this regard.

If all else fails, the information below is for you.

WARNING: Only the values for the Smart-UPS 700 model SU700 and
Smart-UPS 1400 model SU1400, both with international firmware (and
therefore international voltage), have been verified. YOU, gentle reader,
USE THIS INFORMATION AT YOUR OWN RISK in the full knowledge that you
may render your UPS inoperable and perhaps irreparable, and you will
have no-one to blame but yourself. Caveat Utilitor!

The battery constant is the hex number in the column labelled "0",
presumably for register 0, in the following table:

See the bugs section of this document for a list of
known bugs and solutions.

Question:

Why all the craziness with custom serial cables?

Answer:

It was nothing more nor less than a form of customer
control. For a long time APC wanted to keep other people from
talking to its UPSes so it could lock out potential competition for
its PowerChute software. Scrambling the leads on its serial cables
was a cheap way to accomplish this -- in fact, they tended to be
wired so that if you tried a straight-through cable, opening a
serial link to the UPS would be interpreted as a shutdown command!

(Hardware companies often think like this -- they lock up
interfaces by instinct, cornering a small market rather than
growing a bigger one. It's fundamentally stupid and self-defeating,
but it's the kind of stupid that tends to sound good at an
executive meeting.)

Question:

What UPS brands does apcupsd support?

Answer:

Currently apcupsd supports only APC UPSes. However,
some companies such as Hewlett Packard put their own brand name on
APC manufactured UPSes. Thus even if you do not have an APC branded
UPS, it may work with apcupsd. You will need to know the
corresponding APC model number. apcupsd supports all the popular
APC models. See the installation and configurations sections of
this document for more details.

Depending on your CPU speed, you may see more or less
of the CPU consumed by apcupsd. On a 400MHz Unix system, the CPU
usage should fall well below 0.1%. On slower systems, the
percentage will increase proportionally to the decrease in the CPU
speed. On a 400Mhz Win98 machine, the CPU usage will be on the
order of 0.5-1.0%. This is higher than for Unix systems. However,
compared to the 30% CPU usage by APC's PowerChute (the version on
the CDROM shipped with my UPS), apcupsd's 0.5-1.0% is very modest.

Question:

What language is apcupsd written in?

Answer:

It is written in C and C++.

Question:

To test apcupsd, I unplugged the UPS to simulate a
power outage. After the machine went into the shutdown process I
plugged the UPS back into the commercial power source. This caused
the shutdown process to hang after the daemon tried to shut-off the
ups. Have you run into this problem, and if so do you have a
remedy?

Answer:

Normally, once the shutdown process has begun, we
cannot stop it -- how do you stop a
shutdown that has killed off half of the daemons running on your
system? Most likely you will be left with an unusable system. In
addition, when apcupsd is re-executed in the halt script after the
disks are synced, it tries to shut off the UPS power, but the UPS
will generally refuse to do so if the AC power is on. Since we
cannot be 100% sure whether or not the UPS will shut off the power,
we don't attempt to reboot the system if we detect that the power
is back as it might then get caught by a delayed power off (at
least for Smart UPSes).

Question:

After running apcupsd for a while, I get the following
error: "Serial communications with UPS lost." What is the problem?

Answer:

We use standard Unix serial port read() and write()
calls so once a connection is made, we generally have few problems.
However, there have been reports that APC's SNMP Management Card
can cause serial port problems. If you have such a card, we suggest
that you remove it and see if the problem goes away. It is also
possible that some other process such as a getty is reading the
serial port.

The two most likely causes of your problem are: 1. You
have the wrong serial port device name in the apcupsd.conf file. 2.
The device name is not defined on your system. Suggestions for
proceeding:For the first item, check what your serial port device
should be named. You might be able to find the name with an:

ls /dev

Normally there will be hundreds or even thousands of names that
print. If that doesn't produce anything useful, you can try step 2.
Perhaps your device is not defined. To get more information on your
devices try 'man MAKEDEV' or 'find / -name MAKEDEV'. It is often
located in /dev/MAKEDEV. Looking at the documentation may tell
you what the correct name is, or at least allow you to create the
device.

Question:

How do I ensure that the slaves shutdown before the master?

Answer:

Slaves make their shutdown decision independently from the master.
Therefore you can use the TIMEOUT, MINUTES, and BATTERYLEVEL
settings in the slaves' apcupsd.conf to configure them to shut down
before the master.

Question:

How do I ensure that my database server is correctly shutdown?

Answer:

You simply add whatever commands are necessary in the
appropriate case statements in /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol, which is a
standard script file that is called to actually do the shutdown.
Alternatively, you can add your own script file that will be called
before doing the commands in apccontrol. Your script file must have
the same name as the appropriate case statement in apccontrol; it
must be executable; and it must be in the same directory as
apccontrol.

When apcupsd detects anomalies from your UPS device, it will make
some decisions that usually result in one or more calls to the
script located in /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol. The apccontrol file
is a shell script that acts on the first argument that apcupsd
passes to it. These actions are set up by default to sane behavior
for all situations apcupsd is likely to detect from the UPS.
However, you can change the apccontrol behavior for every single
action.

To customize, so create a file with the same name as the action,
which is passed as a command line argument. Put your script in the
/etc/apcupsd directory.

These events are sent to the system log, optionally sent to the
temporary events file (/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.events), and they also
generate a call to /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol which in turn will call
any scripts you have placed in the /etc/apcupsd directory.

Normally, /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol is called only by apcupsd.
Consequently, you should not invoke it directly. However, it is
important to understand how it functions, and in some cases, you
may want to change the messages that it prints using wall. We
recommend that you do so by writing your own script to be invoked
by apccontrol rather than by modifying apccontrol directly. This
makes it easier for you to upgrade to the next version of apcupsd

In other case, you may want to write your own shell scripts that
will be invoked by apccontrol. For example, when a power fail
occurs, you may want to send an email message to root.

To write your own routine for the powerout action, you create
shell script named powerout and put it in the lib directory
(normally /etc/apcupsd). When the powerout action is invoked by
apcupsd, apccontrol will first give control to your script. If you
want apccontrol to continue with the default action, simply exit
your script with an exit status of zero. If you do not want
apccontrol to continue with the default action, your script should
exit with the special exit code of 99. However, in this case,
please be aware that you must ensure proper shutdown of your
machine if necessary.

Some sample scripts (onbattery and mainsback) that email power
failure messages can be found in /etc/apcupsd after an install or
in the platforms/etc directory of the source code.

When apcupsd detects an event, it calls the apccontrol script with
four arguments as:

apccontroleventups-nameconnectedpowered

where:

event

is the event that occurred and it may be any one
of the values described in the next section.

ups-name

is the name of the UPS as specified in the
configuration file (not the name in the EEPROM).

connected

is 1 if apcupsd is connected to the UPS
via a serial port (or a USB port). In most configurations, this
will be the case. In the case of a Slave machine where apcupsd is
not directly connected to the UPS, this value will be 0.

powered

is 1 if the computer on which apcupsd is
running is powered by the UPS and 0 if not. At the moment, this
value is unimplemented and always 0.

The following event names are supported:

annoyme

When a shutdown is scheduled, and the time
specified on the ANNOYME directive in the apcupsd.conf file
expires, this event is generated.

Default:wall a message

changeme

When apcupsd detects that the mains are on,
but the battery is not functioning correctly, this event is
generated. It is repeated every x hours.

Default:wall a message

commfailure

This event is generated each time the
communications line with the computer is severed. This event is not
detected on dumb signaling UPSes.

Default:wall a message

commok

After a commfailure event is issued, when the
communications to the computer is re-established, this event will
be generated.

Default:wall a message

doreboot

This event is depreciated and should not be used.

Default: Shuts down the system using shutdown -h or similar

doshutdown

When the UPS is running on batteries and
one of the limits expires (time, run, load), this event is
generated to cause the machine to shutdown.

Default: Shuts down the system using shutdown -h or similar

emergency

Called for an emergency system shutdown. (What triggers such a shutdown
is unclear...) After completing this event, apcupsd will immediately
initiate a doshutdown event.

Default:wall a message

failing

This event is generated when the UPS is
running on batteries and the battery power is exhausted. The event
following this one will be a shutdown.

Default:wall a message

loadlimit

This event is generated when the battery
charge is below the low limit specified in the apcupsd.conf file.
After completing this event, apcupsd will immediately
initiate a doshutdown event.

Default:wall a message

powerout

This event is generated immediately when
apcupsd detects that the UPS has switched to batteries. It may be
due to a short powerfailure, an automatic selftest of the UPS, or a
longer powerfailure.

Default:wall a message

onbattery

This event is generated 5 or 6 seconds
after an initial powerfailure is detected. It means that apcupsd
definitely considers the UPS to be on batteries. The onset of this
event can be delayed by the ONBATTERYDELAY apcupsd.conf
configuration directive.

Default:wall a message

offbattery

This event is generated when the mains
return only if the onbattery event has been generated.

Default:wall a message

mainsback

This event is generated when the mains
power returns after a powerout condition. The shutdown event may or
may not have been generated depending on the parameters you have
defined and the length of the power outage.

Default: nothing

remotedown

This event is generated on a slave
machine when it detects either that the master has shutdown, or
that a onbattery situation exists and the communications line has
been severed.

Default:wall a message

runlimit

This event is generated when the MINUTES
value defined in the apcupsd.conf file expires while in a power
fail condition. The MINUTES is the remaining runtime as internally
calculated by the UPS and monitored by apcupsd. After completing this
event, apcupsd will immediately initiate a doshutdown event.

Default:wall a message

timeout

This event is generated when the TIMEOUT value
defined in the apcupsd.conf file expires while in a power fail
condition. It indicates that the total time in a power failure has
been exceeded and the machine should be shutdown. After completing this
event, apcupsd will immediately initiate a doshutdown event.

Default:wall a message

startselftest

This event is generated when
apcupsd detects a self test by the UPS. Normally due to the 6
second onbattery delay default time, self test events are not
detected.

Default: nothing

endselftest

This event is generated when the end
of a self test is detected.

Default: nothing

battdetach

This event is generated when apcupsd
detects that the UPS battery has been disconnected.

Default: nothing

battattach

This event is generated when apcupsd
detects that the UPS battery has been reconnected after a
battdetach event.

The following discussion does not apply to Windows servers. Apcupsd on Windows
is limited to a single instance and cannot support monitoring multiple UPSes.

If you have multiple UPSes in use, you may wish to consolidate the monitoring
of all of these UPSes onto a single machine, which we shall call the "UPS
server". Generally one of the UPSes is powering the "UPS server" itself (and
possibly other machines as well). The remaining UPSes are powering additional
machines.

Apcupsd can work quite well in this environment by running one instance of
apcupsd on the UPS server for each UPS to be controlled. That is, you install
a single copy of apcupsd but launch it multiple times using different
configuration files and scripts. (Older versions of apcupsd required you to
actually compile the daemon multiple times with different configure options.
This is no longer required, as all necessary adjustments can be made in
apcupsd.conf.)

Additionally, you will run one instance of apcupsd on each of the machines
you wish to be shut down. You will configure each of these apcupsd's to use
the 'net' driver to read UPS status from the proper instance of apcupsd on the
UPS server. See NIS Server/Client Configuration Using the Net Driver for
more information on the 'net' driver and setting up net clients.

In my case, ups0 is the UPS powering the UPS server running the multiple
apcupsd instances, so only ups0 should initiate a shutdown of the local
machine. The differences between the confs are minor since both UPSes
are USB (although that is not a requirement; mixing cable types works
fine too):

The important difference to note is that ups1 has its SCRIPTDIR,
PWRFAILDIR, and NOLOGINDIR set to a special "null" directory that I have
created. This directory contains a copy of the event handling scripts
modified to avoid shutting down the local machine. (Details below). Also
the UPSes are given different EVENTSFILE and NISPORT settings. Plus I
disable the "annoy" feature on ups1. Since the state of that UPS does not
impact local users, there's no reason to annoy them.

The important change here is the addition of a 'doshutdown' script which
overrides apccontrol's shutdown action:

[adk0212@mail null]$ cat /etc/apcupsd/null/doshutdown
exit 99

The "exit 99" tells apccontrol to skip its normal processing for that
event. apccontrol itself is unchanged; it is a direct copy of the
original. The other scripts are also direct copies and have simply been
modified to generate status email from NISPORT 3552 instead of 3551.

I also have a custom init.d start/stop script to manage multiple
instances. The start, stop, and status handlers are modified to iterate
over all /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.*.conf files. This is derived from the
standard apcupsd redhat rc script:

An SNMP UPS, for example a Web/SNMP (AP9716) or PowerNet SNMP
(AP9605) card installed into the SmartSlot. Apcupsd also has support
for some non-APC SNMP UPSes using RFC1628 or MGE MIBs, however the
majority of the information in this section is for APC UPSes.

SNMP packet requests are relayed to
the UPS from monitoring APCUPSD servers over Ethernet via a switch,
hub, or router. Protecting these Ethernet devices with UPS supplied
power is necessary to ensure reliable SNMP communication during
power failures. Servers may fail to shutdown quietly during power
failures if SNMP communication is lost.

The Network Management Card (AP9617, AP9618, AP9619) must be
configured with network settings before it can communicate on the
network. Once the cards have been configured with an IP address,
Subnet Mask, and Default Gateway the cards can be access, managed,
and controlled from other computers on the network.
There are two ways to configure the Network Management Card (NMC)
with its initial settings: the (windows) Wizard and Address
Resolution Protocol (ARP).
1. The wizard in included on the CD that comes with the card. The
wizard must run on a Windows operating system. You can configure
the card using the wizard over the network via FTP. If using the
wizard please note, the un-configured NMC must be on the same
subnet as the computer running the wizard.
2. Address resolution protocol (arp) can also be used to configure
the NMC. The MAC Address of the NMC is needed for this method of
configuration. The MAC address is located on the quality assurance
slip that is shipped with the NMC, and is also located on the white
sticker on the NMC itself. From a computer on the same subnet as
the un-configured NMC, follow the instructions:
Open up a command prompt and type the following (replacing
<IPaddress> and <MacAddress> with the actual values):
arp -s <IPaddress> <MacAddress>
Next, use Ping with a size of 113 bytes to assign the IP address
defined by the ARP command.
- Linux command format: ping <IPaddress> -s 113
- Windows command format: ping <IPaddress> -l 113

Specifying these parameters will complete the General Parameters
setup. Additionally the SNMP Network Management Card can now be
connected to from a web browser for monitoring and additional
configuration.

There are two shutdown parameters that must be set in the SNMP card
to ensure that connected servers shutdown quietly. These parameters
can be set via the telnet terminal or the web browser interface.

Shutdown Delay (sec)

Return Battery Capacity (%)

One of the draw-backs of SNMP communication to the UPS is that the
Stand-alone or Primary server must issue the power down command to
the UPS early in server halt procedure. This server must issue an
early command to the SNMP UPS to power down before its ethernet
service is halted. This creates a potential problem where the UPS
may kill power to any connected servers before these affected
servers' halt scripts complete a successful shutdown.

The SNMP Shutdown Delay parameter is used to delay the UPS from
killing power to its load by a prescribed period of seconds. The
delay should be long enough to ensure that the Stand-alone or
Primary server has enough time to successfully halt. The prescribed
time should at least be 180 seconds. Any additional computers
connected to the SNMP UPS must not be configured to issue the
command to initiate UPS power down. These servers can be thought of
as secondary stand-alone server. The APCUPSD daemons of secondary
servers should be configured to initiate server halt a prescribed
period of time before the Primary server issues the UPS power down
command.

The Return on Battery Capacity is useful during intermittent
sequential power failures. This parameter insures that the UPS will
not restore power to its loads until it has recharged it battery to
a prescribed percentage. This parameter should be set to a value
greater than value that the APCUPSD daemons configured
"BATTERYLEVEL" shutdown of any connected servers. This will ensure
that when the UPS restores power, any additional power failures
will successfully re-trigger a server shutdown.

By default, APCUPSD will poll the SNMP UPS card once per minute. In
this case, server notification of UPS alarms could potentially be
delayed one minute. Event trap catching mitigates this shortcoming.
Any UPS alarms are instantly sent to prescribe servers connected
SNMP UPS. These servers are referred to as Event Trap Receivers.
The SNMP UPS card can be configure to send event traps to a maximum
of four receivers that will "catch" these events.

Event trap receivers IP address can be set using a telnet terminal
or web browser interface.

Also, be aware that servers configured to be Event Trap Receivers
should have static IP set. Severs obtaining IPs from DHCP server
will not catch instantaneous Events if the IP address changes from
the address set in the SNMP UPS.

community: The read-write community string, usually "private". You can
specify a read-only community string, usually "public", if you do not
require killpower support. If the community string is omitted, apcupsd will
attempt to autotedect by trying "private" and "public".
(optional, default: autodetect).

A NIS Server/Client (Master/Slave) configuration
with multiple servers is still applicable. However, an alternative
configuration is possible with an SNMP
enabled UPS. In this arrangement, all connected servers will be
configured as a standalone server. Each will independently
communicate to the UPS. One (primary) server will be chosen to
manage the task of commanding the UPS to power down. All remaining
(secondary) servers will be configured to quietly power down before
the primary server issues the UPS power down command.

apcupsd-3.11.14 introduces support for SNMP trap catching.
Previous versions polled the UPS status
once per minute, leading to significant delays before UPS state
changes were recognized. With SNMP trap handling, apcupsd monitors
the SNMP trap port and will re-poll the UPS whenever a trap is
received. This happens, for example, when the UPS switches on or
off battery.

In order for this feature to work, you must configure your UPS to
deliver traps to the server running apcupsd. This is generally done
by connecting to your SNMP card via a web browser or telnet
connection. You will need to enter your server's IP address as a
trap receiver and make sure trap delivery is enabled.

Trap catching can lead to problems if you are already running
another SNMP trap daemon on your server. Only one daemon can listen
to the trap port, so whichever one is started first will succeed
and the others will fail. Apcupsd will fall back to polling
behavior if it is unable to open the trap port. You can also
forcibly disable trap catching by appending _NOTRAP to your vendor
string in the apcupsd.conf DEVICE directive.

Currently (as of 3.10.0) the code to power off the UPS needs
special configuration. The killpower command for SNMP UPSes can not
be issued during shutdown as typically at some time during shutdown
operations the network stack is stopped. To overcome this problem
it is needed to modify the /etc/rc.d/apcupsd system control script
to tell apcupsd to issue the power down command (killpower) to the
UPS immediately before apcupsd initiates the system shutdown. For
this reason it is paramount to set your UPS grace time to a value
greater than 120 seconds to allow for clean shutdown operations
before the UPS removes the power from its plugs. To enable correct
shutdown operation during powerdown do the following:

Connect to your Web/SNMP card using your favorite web browser,
go to the UPS configuration menu and change the "Shutdown Delay"
parameter to 180 seconds or more, depending on how much time your
system shutdown requires to umount all the filesystems.

Option 1 (non-windows) Edit the server halt script. Relocate
the ups_kill_power() function higher in the shutdown sequence,
primarily before the command to bring down the ethernet service.
This is the preferred method for shutting down the UPS. The UPS
will power down after the prescribed "Shut Down Delay" time (in
seconds) has elapsed.

Option 2 Change /etc/rc.d/apcupsd script adding the
--kill-on-powerfail to the apcupsd invocation. This method is
not preferred because the UPS is commanded to power down without
delay. This creates the potential for UPS powering down before the
server calling for UPS power down completes its shutdown. However,
in the case of Microsoft Windows OS, this is the only method
available for powering down the UPS.

The apcupsd philosophy is that all logging should be done through the
syslog facility (see: 'man syslog') This is now implemented with
the exceptions that STATUS logging, for compatibility with
prior versions is still done to a file, and EVENTS logging can
be directed to a temporary file so that it can be reported by the
network information server.

Data logging consists of periodically logging important data
concerning the operation of the UPS. For the definitive definition
of the format, see log_data() in apcreports.c. The format varies
according to the UPS model and the information available from the
UPS.

For UPS models, NBKPRO, SMART, SHARESMART, and MATRIX, the output
is written in a format very similar to what PowerChute writes. That
is:

Any value that is not supported by your UPS such as
AmbientTemperature and Humidity will be blank or possibly as 0.0.
In any case the commas before and after that field will still be
output. The toggle value alternates from 0 to 1 on each line. This
was added at user request so that no two adjacent samples are
identical.

LOG_CRIT a serious problem has occurred such as power failure,
running on UPS batteries, ...

LOG_ALERT a condition that needs immediate attention such as
pending system shutdown, ...

The default Facility for syslog() logging is DAEMON, although this
can be changed with the FACILITY directive in apcupsd.conf. In the
following example, we should the facility as local0.

More work needs to be done to the code to ensure that it
corresponds to the above levels.

As a practical example of how to setup your syslog() to use the new
logging feature, suppose you wish to direct all DATA logging to a
file named /var/log/apcupsd.data, all EVENTS to the standard
/var/log/messages file (to be mixed with other system messages),
and at the same time send all EVENTS to /var/log/apcupsd.events,
and finally, you want to send all STATUS logging to the named pipe
/var/log/apcupsd.status

First as root, you create the named pipe:

mkfifo /var/log/apcupsd.status

Change its permissions as necessary or use the -m option to set
them when creating the pipe.

Then you modify your /etc/syslog.conf file to direct the
appropriate levels of messages where you want them. To accomplish
the above, my syslog.conf file looks like:

The Windows version of apcupsd has been tested on Win95, Win98,
WinMe, WinNT, WinXP, and Win2000 systems. This version of apcupsd
has been built to run natively on Windows (no Cygwin or other
emulation layer needed). Even though the Win32 version of apcupsd
is a port that relies on many Unix features, it is just the same a
true Windows program. When running, it is perfectly integrated with
Windows and displays its icon in the system icon tray, and provides
a system tray menu to obtain additional information on how apcupsd
is running (status and events dialog boxes).

Once installed apcupsd normally runs as a system service. This
means that it is immediately started by the operating system when
the system is booted, and runs in the background even if there is
no user logged into the system.

Normally, you will install the Windows version of apcupsd from the
binaries. Starting with version 3.11.15, the Windows binaries are
distributed with a full GUI installer driven by NSIS, the
Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (http://nsis.sourceforge.net).

Installation is very simple and straight-forward: Simply
double-click the installer executable and follow the instructions.

If you are installing Apcupsd for the first time, the installer
will give you an opportunity to edit the apcupsd.conf configuration
file to contain the values appropriate for your site. (Subsequent
installations will maintain your existing apcupsd.conf, so you need
not edit it again unless there are new features or syntax changes
that must be accounted for.)

The default configuration calls for a USB connected UPS. This is
the most common connection for modern UPSes, especially those used
with Windows computers. All other apcupsd drivers are available
(apcsmart, dumb, net, snmp, pcnet) and can be used simply by
editing the configuration file UPSCABLE, UPSTYPE, and DEVICE
settings as described elsewhere in this manual.

Note that on Windows, serial ports are specified using COM1, COM2,
etc. notation instead of the UNIX-style /dev/tty* notation.

Note also if you are using WinNT or Win2000, the operating system
may probe the serial port attempting to attach a serial mouse. This
will cause apcupsd to be unable to communicate with the serial
port. If this happens, or out of precaution, you can edit the
c:\\boot.ini file. Find the line that looks something like the
following:

The installer will give you an opportunity start the Apcupsd
service immediately. If you choose to start it manually, you may do
so by selecting the "Start Apcupsd" link from the Start->Programs->Apcupsd
folder.

On Windows NT/2000/XP, you may alternatively go to the Control
Panel, open the Services folder, select Apcupsd UPS Server, and
then click on the Start button as shown below:

If the Services dialog reports a problem, it is normally because
your DEVICE statement does not contain the correct serial port
name.

You probably should also click on the Startup... button to
ensure that the correct defaults are set. The dialogue box that
appears should have Startup Type set to Automatic* and
**Logon should be set to System Account. If these values are not set
correctly by default, please change them otherwise apcupsd will not
work.

For WinXP and Win2K systems, the dialogs are a bit different from
those shown here for WinNT, but he concept is the same. You get to
the Services dialog by clicking on: Control Panel ->
Administrative Tools -> Component Services. The apcupsd service
should appear in the right hand window when you click on Services
(Local) in the left hand menu window.

That should complete the installation process. When the system tray
icon turns from a question mark into a plug ,
right click on it and a menu will appear. Select the Events
item, and the Events dialogue box should appear. There should be no
error messages. By right clicking again on the system tray plug and
selecting the Status item, you can verify that all the values
for your UPS are correct.

When the UPS switches to the battery, the battery icon
will appear in the system tray. While the UPS is online, if the
battery is not at least 99% charged, the plug icon will become a
plug with a lightning bolt in the middle to indicate that
the battery is charging.

Starting with version 3.14.2, the tray icon is provided by a separate
program called 'apctray'. This cleanly separates the user interface
from the daemon (service) and is required for tray icon support on
Windows Vista. Note that if you close or disable the tray icon this
does not stop or disable the apcupsd service which will continue
to monitor the UPS and shutdown the computer when appropriate. To
stop or disable the service, use the service control panel.

apctray has the capability of monitoring multiple apcupsd instances
using apcupsd's Network Information Server (NIS). It will create a
new icon for each instance being monitored. By default, apctray
monitors the local apcupsd (localhost on port 3551). To add
additional monitors, you can right-click an existing icon and choose
"Add Monitor". To remove a monitor, right-click its icon and choose
"Remove Monitor". To change thr settings for an existing monitor
(ip address, port, refresh rate), right-click its icon and choose
"Configure...".

apctray can be installed standalone (without apcupsd) if you wish
to use it only to monitor remote apcupsd instances. This can be
convenient for keeping an eye on a room full of UPSes from your
desktop. Download and run the normal apcupsd installer and simply
uncheck all components except apctray. Then add as many monitors as
you wish as described above.

It would be hard to overemphasize the need to do a full testing of
your installation of apcupsd as there are a number of reasons why
it may not behave properly in a real power failure situation.

Please read the Testing Apcupsd section of this document for
general instructions on testing the Win32 version. However, on
Win32 systems, there is no Unix system log file, so if something
goes wrong, look in the file c:\apcupsd\etc\apcupsd\apcupsd.events
where apcupsd normally logs its events, and you will generally find
more detailed information on why the program is
not working. The most common cause of problems is either improper
configuration of the cable type, or an incorrect address for the
serial port. Additionally, check the application event log, if
you're running a platform that supports it such as Windows 2000 or
XP.

An upgrade may be accomplished by uninstalling the old version
(using the Add/Remove Programs Control Panel or clicking the
"Uninstall Apcupsd" link from Start -> Programs -> Apcupsd. Near the
end of the uninstall you will be prompted about removing
configuration and event files. You should answer "No" in order to
preserve your existing apcupsd.conf file.

After the uninstall completes you may install the new version of
Apcupsd as described above. If you preserved your existing
apcupsd.conf file, the new apcupsd.conf will be installed as
apcupsd.conf.new.

After installing
apcupsd and before running it, you should check the contents of the
config file c:\apcupsd\etc\apcupsd\apcupsd.conf. You will
probably need to change your UPSCABLE directive, your UPSTYPE and
possibly your DEVICE directives. Please refer to the configuration
section of this manual for more details.

On some Windows systems, the
domain resolution does not seem to work if you have not configured
a DNS server in the Network section of the Control Panel. This
problem should be apparent only when running a slave configuration.
In this case, when you specify the name of the master in your
apcupsd.conf file, apcupsd will be unable to resolve the name to a
valid IP address. To circumvent this problem, simply enter the
address as an IP address rather than a hostname, or alternatively,
ensure that you have a valid DNS server configured on your system.

On WinNT, WinXP, and Win2K systems, you can examine the System
Applications log to which apcupsd writes Windows error messages
during startup.

Regardless of which Windows system you are running, apcupsd logs
most error messages to c:\apcupsd\etc\apcupsd\apcupsd.events.
This type error messages such as configuration
file not found, etc are written to this file. Note that on some
systems (WinXP, possibly others) Apcupsd is unable to write to this
file when running as a service.

It is possible to receive email notification of apcupsd events
using some simple Visual Basic scripts contributed by Ed Dondlinger
<edondlinger@thepylegroup.com>. The scripts are automatically installed in
the etc/apcupsd directory of your apcupsd installation but are disabled
by default. To enable them, first open them in a text editor such as Notepad
and edit the USER VARIABLES section to set your email preferences including
address, server information, etc. Then rename the script files without the
*.example suffix. Scripts are supplied for onbattery, offbattery, and
commfailure events. You can copy the scripts to other filenames and modify
the email body text to respond to other events as described in Customizing
Event Handling.

If your batteries become
exhausted during a power failure and you want your machine to
automatically reboot when the power comes back, it is useful to
implement the killpower feature of the UPS where apcupsd sends the
UPS the command to shut off the power. In doing so, the power will
be cut to your PC and if your BIOS is properly setup, the machine
will automatically reboot when the power comes back. This is
important for servers.

This feature is implemented on Unix systems by first requesting a
system shutdown. As a part of the shutdown, apcupsd is terminated
by the system, but the shutdown process executes a script where
apcupsd is recalled after the disks are synced and the machine is
idle. Apcupsd then requests the UPS to shut off the power
(killpower).

Unfortunately on Windows, there is no such shutdown script that we
are aware of and no way for apcupsd to get control after the
machine is idled. If this feature is important to you, it is
possible to do it by telling apcupsd to immediately issue the
killpower command after issuing the shutdown request. The danger in
doing so is that if the machine is not sufficiently idled when the
killpower takes place, the disks will need to be rescanned (and
there is a possibility of lost data however small). Generally,
UPSes have a shutdown grace period which gives sufficient time for
the OS to shutdown before the power is cut.

To implement this feature, you need to add the -p option to the
apcupsd command line that is executed by the system. Currently the
procedure is manual. You do so by editing the registry and changing
the line:

If you have a Smart UPS, you can configure the kill power grace
period, and you might want to set it to 3 minutes. If you have a
dumb UPS, there is no grace period and you should not use this
procedure. If you have a Back-UPS CS or ES, these UPSes generally
have a fixed grace period of 2 minutes, which is probably
sufficient.

Our philosophy is to shutdown
a computer but not to power it down itself (as opposed to having
the UPS cut the power as described above). That is we prefer to
idle a computer but leave it running. This has the advantage that
in a power fail situation, if the killpower function described
above does not work, the computer will continue to draw down the
batteries and the UPS will hopefully shutoff before the power is
restore thus permitting an automatic reboot.

Nevertheless some people prefer to do a full power down. To do so,
you might want to get a copy of PsShutdown, which does have a power
down option. You can find it and a lot more useful software at:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897541.aspx. To use their shutdown
program rather than the apcupsd supplied version, you simply edit:

These options are not normally
seen or used by the user, and are documented here only for
information purposes. At the current time, to change the default
options, you must either manually run apcupsd or you must manually
edit the system registry and modify the appropriate entries.

In order to avoid option clashes between the options necessary for
apcupsd to run on Windows and the standard apcupsd options, all
Windows specific options are signaled with a forward slash
character (/), while as usual, the standard apcupsd options are
signaled with a minus (-), or a minus minus (--). All the
standard apcupsd options can be used on the Windows version. In
addition, the following Windows only options are implemented:

/service

Start apcupsd as a service

/run

Run the apcupsd application

/install

Install apcupsd as a service in the system registry

/remove

Uninstall apcupsd from the system registry

/about

Show the apcupsd about dialogue box

/kill

Stop any running apcupsd

/help

Show the apcupsd help dialogue box

It is important to note that under normal circumstances the user
should never need to use these options as they are normally handled
by the system automatically once apcupsd is installed. However, you
may note these options in some of the .pif files that have been
created for your use.

If you have a UPS that communicates via
serial port, you need to do two things before you can even think
about configuring the software. First, you need to figure out
whether it's a dumb (voltage-signalling) UPS or speaks the apcsmart
protocol. Second,
if you have an interface cable from APC, you need to figure out
what kind it is. If you don't have such a cable, you need to build
one. A straight-through serial cable won't work.

According to Bill Marr the Belkin F5U109, also sold as F5U409 also
works with apcupsd for kernel versions 2.4.25 or higher and kernels
2.6.1 and higher. These newer kernels are needed to have the patch
that makes the mct_u232 (Magic Control Technology) module and
other adapters work with RS-232 devices that do not assert the CTS
signal.

By using a special adaptor, you can
connect your serial-line UPS to a USB port. If you would like to
free up your serial port and connect your existing serial port UPS
to a USB port, it is possible if you have one of the later kernels.
You simply get a serial to USB adapter that is supported by the
kernel, plug it in and make one minor change to your apcupsd.conf
file and away you go. (Kern adds: Thanks to Joe Acosta for pointing
this out to me.)

The device that Joe Acosta and Kern are using is IOgear GUC232A USB
2 serial adapter. Bill Marr informs us that it also works with a
Back-UPS Pro 650 and the 940-0095B cable.

At Kern's site, running Red Hat 7.1 with kernel 2.4.9-12, he simply
changed his /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf configuration line to be:

DEVICE /dev/ttyUSB0

Depending on whether or not you have hotplug working, you may
need to explicitly load the kernel modules usbserial and
pl2303. In Kern's case, this was not necessary.

If you have a serial-line UPS, there are some tests you should run
before the general ones described in the Testing Apcupsd section.

To test your computer's connection with a serial-line UPS, you
first need to establish that the serial line is functioning, and
then that the UPS is responding to commands. This can be a bit
tricky, especially with a dumb voltage-signalling interface,
because it is completely quiescent when there are no commands being
passed, and the command repertoire doesn't include any self-tests.

Because it is easy to configure a serial cable incorrectly in such
a way as to cause premature shutdowns of the UPS power, we
strongly recommend, especially for voltage- signaling (dumb)
UPSes, that you do most of the initial testing with your computer
plugged into the wall rather than your UPS. Thus if the UPS power
is suddenly shut off, your computer will continue to run. We also
recommend using safe-apccontrol as described below, until you are
sure that the signaling is correct.

Also note that if you launch the execution of apcupsd while your
voltage-signaling UPS is on battery power, it is very likely that
your UPS will immediately shut off the power. This is due to the
initialization of the serial port line signals, which often looks
to the UPS like a shutdown command.

Finally, double-check the state of your cabling and UPS indicator
lights frequently during testing. For voltage-signaling UPSes,
apcupsd is not currently able to detect whether or not the serial
cable is connected. In addition, some simple signaling UPSes with
certain cable combinations are not able to detect the low battery
condition. For more details please see Voltage Signalling Features
Supported by Apcupsd for Various Cables.

it means that apcupsd tried for about 30 seconds to establish
contact with the UPS via the serial port, but was unable to do so.
Before continuing, you must correct this problem. Some of the
possible sources of the problem are:

You have not configured the correct serial port name on the
DEVICE directive in your apcupsd configuration file.

The serial port that you have chosen has logins enabled. You
must disable logins on that port, otherwise, the system prevents
apcupsd from using it. Normally, the file /etc/inittab specifies
the ports for which a getty process is started (on Sun machines,
the serial port program equivalent to getty is called ttymon). You
must disable this for the port that you wish to use.

Make sure you are doing your testing as root otherwise, you
may have permissions problems accessing the serial port.

You may have cabling problems, either with an incorrect cable,
or the incorrect cable specification directive in the configuration
file.

You may have a problem with the /etc/apcupsd/acpupsd.conf file.
For example, check that you have specified the correct type of UPS
and the correct networking directives. For more details, see the
After Installation section.

If you have a SmartUPS 5000 RM 15U or similar model, that comes
with a "Web/SNMP management card" in one of the "Smart Slots", this
card may interfere with the serial port operation. If you are
having problems, please remove this card and try again. Supposedly
V3.0 of the card firmware has been corrected to properly release
the serial port.

Ensure that you have no other programs that are using the serial
port. One user reported that he had problems because the serial
port mouse (gpm) was using the same port as apcupsd. This causes
intermittent seemingly random problems.

Try connecting your UPS to another machine. If it works, then
you probably have a bad serial port card. As unlikely as this may
sound, at least two of our users have had to replace bad serial
port cards.

Try doing an 'lsof /dev/ttyS0' where you replace the
/dev/ttyS0 with your serial port name. If you get no output, the
port is free (or there is no physical port). If you get output,
then another program is using the port, and you should see which
one.

Try doing a 'dmesg | grep tty'. This may show you if a program
has grabbed the port. (Thanks to Joe Acosta for the suggestion.)

If all else fails, make sure your system is configured for
serial port support.

The first thing to do is to look at your log file, usually
/var/log/messages because apcupsd writes more detailed information
to the log file whenever there is an error.

If you have a UPS that uses apcsmart protocol, you can manually test the
serial communications with the UPS by starting a serial port communications
program (such as minicom, tip, or cu) with the settings 2400 8N1 (2400 baud,
8 data bits, no parity, 1 stop bit). Be extremely careful what you send to
your UPS as certain characters may cause it to power down or may
even cause damage to the UPS. Try sending an upper case Y to the
UPS (without a return at the end). It should respond with SM. If
this is not the case, review the possible problems listed above. If
you fat finger the Y and enter y instead, no cause for alarm, you
will simply get the APC copyright notice.

Once you are sure that serial port communications is working,
proceed to the next test.

The most frequently encountered problem with voltage-signalling
UPSes (e.g. BackUPS 650) is that you have incorrectly specified
which cable is being used. All cables furnished by APC have the
cable number stamped on the side of the computer connector end of
the cable. Using this number with apcupsd will normally work fine.
If you do not know what cable you have, you can use the apctest
program to determine the type of the cable.

For simple signaling UPSes, you should not use simple in the
cable specification (i.e. UPSCABLE simple) unless you have made
the cable yourself according to the wiring diagram given in the
cables chapter of this manual.

In one case, a user reported that he received random incorrect
values from the UPS in the status output. It turned out that gpm,
the mouse control program for command windows, was using the serial
port without using the standard Unix locking mechanism. As a
consequence, both apcupsd and gpm were reading the serial port.
Please ensure that if you are running gpm that it is not configured
with a serial port mouse on the same serial port.

You can either use the cable that came with your
UPS (the easiest if we support it) or you can make your own cable.
We recommend that you obtain a supported cable directly from APC.

If you already have an APC cable, you can determine what kind it is
by examining the flat sides of the two connectors where you will
find the cable number embossed into the plastic. It is generally on
one side of the male connector.

To make your own cable you must first know whether you have a UPS
that speaks the apcsmart protocol or a "dumb" UPS that uses serial
port line voltage signalling.

three (3) to five (5) feet of 22AWG multi-stranded four or more
conductor cable.

Assembly instructions:

Solder the resistor into pin 4 of the female DB9 connector.

Next bend the resistor so that it connects to pin 8 of the
female DB9 connector.

Pin 8 on the female connector is also wired to pin 5 on the male
DB9 connector. Solder both ends.

Solder the other pins, pin 5 on the female DB9 to pin 4 on the
male connector; pin 1 on the female connector to pin 2 on the male
connector; and pin 7 on the female connector to pin 1 on the male
connector.

Double check your work.

We use the DTR (pin 4 on the female connector) as our +5 volts
power for the circuit. It is used as the Vcc pull-up voltage for
testing the outputs on any "UPS by APC" in voltage-signalling mode.
This cable may not work on a BackUPS Pro if the default
communications are in apcsmart mode. This cable is also valid for
use on a ShareUPS BASIC Port. It is reported to work on
SmartUPSes, however the Smart Cable described above is preferred.

To have a better idea of what is going on inside apcupsd,
for the SIMPLE cable apcupsd reads three signals and sets three:

Reads:

CD, which apcupsd uses for the On Battery signal when high.

CTS, which apcupsd uses for the Battery Low signal when high.

RxD (SR), which apcupsd uses for the Line Down

signal when high. This signal isn't used for much.

Sets:

DTR, which apcupsd sets when it detects a power failure (generally

5 to 10 seconds after the CD signal goes high). It
clears this signal if the CD signal subsequently goes low
-- i.e. power is restored.

TxD (ST), which apcupsd clears when it detects that the CD signal

has gone low after having gone high - i.e. power is restored.

RTS, which apcupsd sets for the killpower signal -- to cause the UPS

to shut off the power.

Please note that these actions apply only to the SIMPLE cable. The
signals used on the other cables are different.

If you have a BackUPS CS, you are probably either using it with the
USB cable that is supplied or with the 940-0128A supplied by APC,
which permits running the UPS in dumb mode. By building your own
cable, you can now run the BackUPS CS models (and perhaps also the
ES models) using smart signalling and have all the same information
that is available as running it in USB mode.

The jack in the UPS is actually a 10 pin RJ45. However, you can
just as easily use a 8 pin RJ45 connector, which is more standard
(ethernet TX, and ISDN connector). It is easy to construct the
cable by cutting off one end of a standard RJ45-8 ethernet cable
and wiring the other end (three wires) into a standard DB9F female
serial port connector.

For the serial port DB9F connector, the pin numbers are stamped in
the plastic near each pin. In addition, there is a diagram near the
end of this chapter.

Note, one user, Martin, has found that if the shield is not
connected to the Frame Ground in the above diagram (not in our
original schematic), the UPS (a BackUPS CS 500 EI) will be unstable
and likely to rapidly switch from power to batteries (i.e.
chatter).

When using this cable with apcupsd specify the following in
apcupsd.conf:

Apparently, all APC voltage-signalling UPSes with DB9 serial ports
have the same signals on the output pins of the UPS. The difference
at the computer end is due to different cable configurations. Thus,
by measuring the connectivity of a cable, one can determine how to
program the UPS.

The signals presented or accepted by the UPS on its DB9 connector
using the numbering scheme listed above is:

UPS Pin Signal meaning
1 <- Shutdown when set by computer for 1-5 seconds.
2 -> On battery power (this signal is normally low but
goes high when the UPS switches to batteries).
3 -> Mains down (line fail) See Note 1 below.
5 -> Low battery. See Note 1 below.
6 -> Inverse of mains down signal. See Note 2 below.
7 <- Turn on/off power (only on advanced UPSes only)
Note 1: these two lines are normally open, but close when the
appropriate signal is triggered. In fact, they are open collector
outputs which are rated for a maximum of +40VDC and 25 mA. Thus
the 4.7K ohm resistor used in the Custom Simple cable works
quite well.
Note 2: the same as note 1 except that the line is normally closed,
and opens when the line voltage fails.

Although we do not know what the black box semiconductor contains,
we believe that we understand its operation (many thanks to Lazar
M. Fleysher for working this out).

This cable can only be used on voltage-signalling UPSes, and
provides the On Battery signal as well as kill UPS power. Most
recent evidence (Lazar's analysis) indicates that this cable under
the right conditions may provide the Low Battery signal. This is
yet to be confirmed.

This diagram is for informational purposes and may not be complete.
We don't recommend that use it to build you build one yourself.

This cable can only be used on voltage-signalling UPSes, and
apparently only provides the On Battery signal. As a consequence,
this cable is pretty much useless, and we recommend that you find a
better cable because all APC UPSes support more than just On
Battery. Please note that we are not sure the following diagram is
correct.

This diagram is for informational purposes and may not be complete.
We don't recommend that use it to build you build one yourself.

This is the definitive wiring diagram for the 940-0095A cable
submitted by Chris Hanson, who disassembled the original cable,
destroying it in the process. He then built one from his diagram
and it works perfectly.

DTR is "cable power" and must be held at SPACE. DSR or CTS may
be used as a loopback input to determine if the cable is plugged
in.

DCD is the "battery low" signal to the computer. A SPACE on this
line means the battery is low. This is signalled by BATTERY-LOW
being pulled down (it is probably open circuit normally).

Normally, the transistor is turned off, and DCD is held at the MARK
voltage by TxD. When BATTERY-LOW is pulled down, the voltage
divider R2/R1 biases the transistor so that it is turned on,
causing DCD to be pulled up to the SPACE voltage.

TxD must be held at MARK; this is the default state when no data
is being transmitted. This sets the default bias for both DCD and
SHUTDOWN. If this line is an open circuit, then when BATTERY-LOW is
signalled, SHUTDOWN will be automatically signalled; this would be
true if the cable were plugged in to the UPS and not the computer,
or if the computer were turned off.

RTS is the "shutdown" signal from the computer. A SPACE on this
line tells the UPS to shut down.

RxD and RI are both the "power-fail" signals to the computer. A
MARK on this line means the power has failed.

SPACE is a positive voltage, typically +12V. MARK is a negative
voltage, typically -12V. Linux appears to translate SPACE to a 1
and MARK to a 0.

The BackUPS ES has a straight through serial cable with no
identification on the plugs. To make it work with apcupsd, specify
the { UPSCABLE 940-0119A} and { UPSTYPE backups}. The equivalent of
cable 940-0119A is done on a PCB inside the unit.

Though these UPSes are USB UPSes, APC supplies a serial cable
(typically with a green DB9 F connector) that has 940-0128A stamped
into one side of the plastic serial port connector. The other end
of the cable is a 10 pin RJ45 connector that plugs into the UPS
(thanks to Dean Waldow for sending a cable!). Apcupsd version 3.8.5
and later supports this cable when specified as { UPSCABLE
940-0128A} and { UPSTYPE dumb}. However, running in this mode much
of the information that would be available in USB mode is lost. In
addition, when apcupsd attempts to instruct the UPS to kill the
power, it begins cycling about 4 times a second between battery and
line. The solution to the problem (thanks to Tom Suzda) is to
unplug the UPS and while it is still chattering, press the power
button (on the front of the unit) until the unit beeps and the
chattering stops. After that the UPS should behave normally and
power down 1-2 minutes after requested to do so.

Thanks to all the people who have helped test this and have
provided information on the cable wiring, our best guess for the
cable schematic is the following:

Note: In a future release of apcupsd this procedure will be
replaced by a daemon operation that can be performed on all types
of UPS.

This section does not apply to voltage-signalling or dumb UPSes
such as the older BackUPS models.

Smart UPSes internally compute the remaining runtime, and apcupsd
uses the value supplied by the UPS. As the batteries age (after say
two or three years), the runtime computation may no longer be
accurate since the batteries no longer hold the same charge. As a
consequence, in the event of a power failure, the UPS and thus
apcupsd can report a runtime of 5 minutes remaining when in fact
only one minute remains. This can lead to a shutdown before you
might expect it, because regardless of the runtime remaining that
is reported, the UPS will always correctly detect low batteries and
report it, thus causing apcupsd to correctly shutdown your
computer.

If you wish to have the UPS recalibrate the remaining runtime
calculations, you can do so manually as the current version of
apcupsd does not support this feature. To do so,

Shutdown apcupsd

contact your UPS directly using some terminal program such as
minicom, tip, or cu with the settings 2400 8N1 (2400 baud, 8 bits,
no parity, 1 stop bit). Be extremely careful what you send to your
UPS as certain characters may cause it to power down or may even
cause damage to the UPS. Try sending an upper case Y to the UPS
(without a return at the end). It should respond with SM. If this
is not the case, read the chapter on testing. If you fat finger the
Y and enter y instead, no cause for alarm, you will simply get the
APC copyright notice.

when you are sure you are properly connected send an upper case
D (no cr). This will put the UPS into calibration mode, and it will
drain the battery down to 25% capacity (35% for a Matrix) at which
point it will go back on the mains. In doing so, it will recompute
the runtime calibration.

If you wish to abort the calibration, enter a second D command.

When you are done, restart apcupsd.

In principle, you should be able to do this with the computer
powered by the UPS, but if you wish to be completely safe, you
should plug your computer into the wall prior to performing the
runtime calibration. In that case, you will need to artificially
load the UPS with light bulbs or other means. You should supply a
load of about 30 to 35% but not more than 50%. You can determine
the load by looking at the output of the apcaccess status
command while apcupsd is running.

You should not run the recalibration command more than once or
twice per year as discharging these kinds of batteries tends to
shorten their life span.

Configuration directives in /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.conf control the
behavior of the apcupsd daemon. For most installations it is only
necessary to set a handful of general directives. The rest can be
left at their defaults unless you have an exotic configuration.

Note that the apcupsd daemon must be restarted in order for changes to
the configuration file to become active.

In general, each of these directives is required (except that the
DEVICE directive is ignored for UPSCABLE ether and not required
for UPSCABLE usb).

UPSTYPEdriver

The name of a driver. Should be one of dumb, apcsmart, net,
usb, pcnet, snmp, or test.
This describes your interface type. The UPSTYPE directive can be
defined during installation by using the --with-upstype= option
of the configure program.

The --with-upscable= option of configure can be used to
set a default for this directive during the your build.

DEVICEdevice

Specify which
device is used for UPS communications. For serial ports, it is
usually something like /dev/ttyS0. For USB ports, you may leave the
name of the device blank (no specification) and apcupsd will
automatically search the standard locations for the UPS.

Normally, the configure program will set an appropriate
default value. You may also specify the --with-serial-dev=
option of the configure program to set this directive at build
time.

If you have specified UPSTYPE net, then the device name to be
specified consists of hostname:port where the hostname is the
fully qualified name or IP address of the host (NIS server) and the
port (optional) is the port to use to contact the server.

If you specified UPSTYPE snmp, then the device name becomes
hostname:vendor:community. Please see the Support for SNMP UPSes
chapter in this manual for more details.

POLLTIMEtime in seconds

The interval, in seconds, at which apcupsd polls the UPS for status.
This rate is automatically set to 1 second if the UPS goes on
batteries and reset to your specified value when the mains power
returns. This setting applies both to directly-attached UPSes
(UPSTYPEapcsmart, usb, dumb) and networked UPSes
(UPSTYPEnet, snmp). Lowering this setting will improve
apcupsd's responsiveness to certain events at the cost of higher CPU
utilization. The default of 60 is appropriate for most situations.
This directive was formerly known as NETTIME.

LOCKFILEpath to lockfile

This option tells apcupsd where to create a lockfile for the USB or
serial port in the specified directory. This is important to keep
two programs from reading or writing the port at the same time.
Please note that although the directive name is LOCKFILE, you are
actually specifying the lock file path. apcupsd automatically
appends the name of the device when creating the file. On most
systems, this directive is automatically set by the ./configure
program. You may also explicitly set it during the build process by
using the --with-lock-dir= option of the configure program.

None of these directives are required for proper operation of
apcupsd.

NETSERVER[on | off]

This configuration directive turns the network information server on or
off. If it is on, apcupsd will spawn a child process that serves
STATUS and EVENTS information over the network. This information is
currently used by the Web-based CGI programs. The default is on. This
option is required to be turned on for net clients and apcaccess to
function.

NISIPIP-address

This directive specifies the
IP address of the network interface on which the NIS server will
listen for incoming connections. Default value is 0.0.0.0 which
means the NIS will listen for connections on all network
interfaces. If your machine has more than one interface, you can
specify the IP of a single interface to limit connections to only
that interface. Furthermore, you can specify the loopback address
(127.0.0.1) to accept connections only from the local machine. You
may also use the --with-nisip= option of the configure
program to set this directive during the build.

NISPORTport

This configuration directive
specifies the port to be used by the apcupsd Network Information
Server. The default is platform dependent, but typically 3551,
which we have received from IANA as the official apcupsd networking
port. This value should only be changed if it conflicts with an
existing service in use on your network or if you are running multiple
instances of apcupsd on the same machine.

EVENTSFILEfilename

If you want the apcupsd network information server to provide the last
10 events via the network, you must specify a file where apcupsd will save
these events. The default is: /etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.events.
Currently, apcupsd will save at most the last 50 events.
Periodically (once an hour by default), apcupsd will check the size
of this file. When more than 50 events are recorded, apcupsd will
truncate the file to the most recent 10 events. Consequently this
file will not grow indefinitely. Although we do not recommend it,
you may change these values by editing apcevents.c and changing the
appropriate defines. Be aware that if you set these values to very
large numbers, apcupsd may make excessive memory demands on the
system during the data access and file truncation operations.

This filename may also be specified at build time by using the
--with-log-dir= option of the configure program.

In general, none of these
directives are required. However, if you have a voltage-signalling
(dumb) UPS with a cable that does not support the Low Battery
signal, you must set the TIMEOUT directive to force a shutdown.

BATTERYLEVELpercent of battery

If BATTERYLEVEL is specified, during a power failure, apcupsd
will halt the system when the remaining battery charge falls below
the specified percentage. The default is 5 percent. This directive
is ignored for dumb (voltage-signalling) UPSes. To totally disable
this counter, set BATTERYLEVEL -1 in your apcupsd.conf file.

MINUTESbattery runtime in minutes

If MINUTES is specified, during a power failure, apcupsd
will shutdown the system when the remaining runtime on batteries as
internally calculated by the UPS falls below the time specified.
The default is 3. This directive is ignored for dumb
(voltage-signalling) UPSes. It should be noted that some UPSes
report an incorrect value for remaining runtime when the battery is
fully charged. This can be checked by examining the TIMELEFT
value as printed in the output of an 'apcaccess status' command.
If the value is zero or otherwise unreasonable, your UPS is
probably broken. In this case, we recommend that you disable this
timer by setting MINUTES -1 in your apcupsd.conf file.

TIMEOUTtime in seconds

After a power
failure, apcupsd will halt the system when TIMEOUT seconds have
expired. A value of zero disables this timer. Normally for all
Smart UPS models and dumb UPSes with cables that support low
battery detection, this should be zero so that the shutdown time
will be determined by the battery level and/or remaining runtime
(see above) or in the case of a voltage-signalling UPS, when the
battery is exhausted. This command is required for dumb UPSes that
do not provide a battery exhausted signal (only testing can
determine this point). For more information, see the
Testing Apcupsd section of this manual. This
timer can also be useful if you want some slave machines to
shutdown before other machines to conserve battery power. It is
also useful for testing apcupsd because you can force a rapid
shutdown by setting a small value (e.g. 60) and pulling the plug to
the UPS.

TIMEOUT, BATTERYLEVEL, and MINUTES can be set together
without problems. apcupsd will react to the first case or test that
is valid. Normally SmartUPS users will set TIMEOUT to zero so
that the system is shutdown depending on the percentage battery
charge remaining (BATTERYLEVEL) or the remaining battery runtime
(MINUTES).

ANNOYtime in seconds

Specify the time
in seconds between messages requesting logged in users to get off
the system during a power failure. This timer starts only when the
UPS is running on batteries. The default is 300 seconds (5
minutes). apcupsd sends the annoy messages by invoking the
apccontrol script with the annoyme argument. The default is to
send a wall message on Unix systems and a popup message in
Windows.

The value of ANNOYDELAY must be greater than the value of
ANNOY in order to receive annoy messages (this doesn't make sense,
and means that the default values do not generate annoy messages:
KES).

Note that if NOLOGON disable is set, the annoy messages
will also be disabled.

ANNOYDELAYtime in seconds

Specify delay time in seconds before apcupsd begins requesting logged in
users to get off the system during a power failure. This timer
starts only after the UPS is running on batteries. This timer is
reset when the power returns. The default is 60 seconds. Thus, the
first warning to log off the system occurs after 60 seconds on
batteries, assuming that NOLOGON is not set to disable.

NOLOGONdisable | timeout | percent | minutes | always

Specifies when apcupsd should prevent user logins

The type specified allows you define the point when apcupsd will
create the 'nologin' file and thus when user logins are prohibited.
Once the 'nologin' file is created, normal users are prevented from
logging in. Control of when this file is created is important for
allowing systems with big UPSes to run as normally until the system
administrator determines the need for preventing user logins. The
feature also allows the system administrator to hold the "ANNOY"
factor until the 'nologin' file is created. The default is always
disable if no NOLOGON directive is specified.

The 'nologin' file will be created in the directory specified by
the NOLOGINDIR directive described below.

As far as I can tell, the only useful types are disable and always
since the difference in the time when the logout warning is given
and shutdown occurs for the other types is very short (KES).

disable prevents apcupsd from creating the nologin
file. Consequently, any user can login during a power failure
condition. Also, the ANNOY feature is disabled so users will not be
warned to logoff the system.

timeout specifies that apcupsd should prohibit logins
after the UPS is on batteries for 90% of the time specified on the
TIMEOUT configuration directive. Note! Normally you don't want
to specify a TIMEOUT value, so this option is probably not too
useful (KES).

percent specifies that apcupsd should prohibit logins
when the remaining battery charge percentage reaches 110% or less
than the value specified on the BATTERYLEVEL configuration
directive. Thus if the BATTERYLEVEL is specified as 15, apcupsd
will prohibit logins when the battery charge drops below 16% (15% X
110% = 16%).

minutes specifies that apcupsd should prohibit logins
when the remaining runtime in minutes reaches 110% or less than the
value specified on the MINUTES configuration directive. Thus if
MINUTES is set to 3, apcupsd will prohibit logins when the
remaining runtime is less than 3 minutes (3 X 110% = 3).

always causes apcupsd to immediately prohibit logins
when a power failure occurs. This will also enable the ANNOY
feature.

NOLOGINDIRpath to nologin dir

This directive configures the directory into which apcupsd will
write the nologin file, as described above for the NOLOGON
directive.

Normally, the configure program will set an appropriate
default value for your platform, often /etc. You may also specify
the --with-nologdir= option of the configure program to
change the default at compile time.

KILLDELAYtime in seconds

If KILLDELAY is set, apcupsd will continue running after a shutdown
has been requested, and after the specified time in seconds,
apcupsd will attempt to shut off the UPS the power. This directive
should normally be disabled by setting the value to zero, but on
some systems such as Win32 systems apcupsd cannot regain control
after a shutdown to force the UPS to shut off the power. In this
case, with proper consideration for the timing, the KILLDELAY
directive can be useful. Please be aware, if you cause apcupsd to
kill the power to your computer too early, the system and the disks
may not have been properly prepared. In addition, apcupsd must
continue running after the shutdown is requested, and on Unix
systems, this is not normally the case as the system will terminate
all processes during the shutdown.

SCRIPTDIRpath to apccontrol dir

This option configures the directory in which apccontrol and
other event scripts are located.

Normally, the configure program will set an appropriate
default value for your platform, often /etc/apcupsd.

PWRFAILDIRpath to powerfail dir

When apcupsd shuts down your system, it creates a temporary
"flag file" which is used by the operating system halt scripts to
know if this shutdown is due to a power failure. This directive
configures which directory the flag file will be written into. The
chosen directory must be writable by the user apcupsd is running as
(normally root) and must not be cleared or unmounted early in the
shutdown sequence.

Normally, the configure program will set an appropriate
default value for your platform, often /etc/apcupsd. You may also
specify the --with-pwrfaildir= option of the configure
program to change the default at compile time.

This directive supplies the time
interval in seconds between writes to the STATUS file. If set to zero, the
STATUS file will not be written. Please note that in a future
version of apcupsd the STATUS file code will disappear since its
functionality has been replaced by the Network Information Server
and by apcaccess status, as a consequence, it is normally
disabled by setting it to zero.

STATFILEfile

This directive specifies the file
to be used when writing the STATUS information. The default is
/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.status.

DATATIMEtime in seconds

This directives supplies the time
interval in seconds between writes of PowerChute-like data information to
the log file. See the DATA Logging section of this manual for
additional details.

FACILITYlog-facility

The FACILITY
directive can be used to change the system logging class or
facility. The default is DAEMON. This parameter can be useful if
you wish to direct the apcupsd system logging information to other
than your system default files. See the apcupsd System Logging
section of this manual for additional details.

There is a good deal of information available about the UPS and apcupsd's
status. This document describes the format of that information.
Normally you will get at it via apcaccess, but there are other ways
as well.

STATUS output is in ASCII format with a single data value or piece
of information on each line output. Because not all UPSes supply
the same information, the output varies based on the type of UPS
that you are using. In general, if the information is not available
for your UPS, the line will be missing entirely or the data portion of
the output record will contain an N/A indicating that the information
is not available.

Status logging consists of periodically logging ALL available
information concerning the UPS. Since the volume of data is rather
large (over 1000 bytes per status), the STATUS data is not
automatically sent to the system log file. Instead, it is written
as a series of data records in a specific file (normally
/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.status).

After each write, the file is rewound so that the size of the file
remains constant. The STATUS file is kept for backward compatibility
and will be eliminated in a future version of apcupsd. The preferred
method for obtaining this information is from apcaccess or by using
the CGI interface (see apcupsd Network Monitoring (CGI) Programs).

To make reading the status data reliable via a named pipe, the
first record written contains a version number, the number of
records that follow the first record, and the total number of bytes
in those subsequent records. An actual example of such a status
file (/etc/apcupsd/apcupsd.status) is shown below.

Consequently, the first record always consists of 24 bytes (23
characters followed by a newline). This record starts with APC and
as indicated in the example is followed by 37 records
consisting of 906 bytes. The last record begins with END APC and
contains the date and time matching the DATE record.

When this data is written to a file, it is written as two records,
the first record, and all the other records together. In reading
the file, it can be either be read a record at a time, or in one
big read.

When this data is written to syslog(), it is written a record at a
time. The first record is the first 24 bytes. By having the number
of records and the size in the first record, the complete status
can be reliably reassembled.

If specified in the configuration file, the STATUS data will also be
written to the system log file. Please note, that it would not
normally be wise to write this data to a normal system log file as
there is no mechanism in syslog() to rewind the file and hence the
log file would quickly become enormous. However, in two cases, it
can be very useful to use syslog() to write this information.

The first case is to set up your syslog.conf file so that the data
is written to a named pipe. In this case, normally not more than
about 8192 bytes of data will be kept before it is discarded by the
system.

The second case is to setup your syslog.conf file so that the
status data is sent to another machine, which presumably then
writes it to a named pipe. Consequently, with this mechanism,
provides a simple means of networking apcupsd STATUS information.

Although we mention system logging of STATUS information, we
strongly recommend that you use apcaccess or the CGI interface to
get this information.

If you experienced so problems with the testing procedures, or if
you are porting apcupsd to another system, or you are simply
curious, you may want to know exactly what is going on during the
shutdown process.

The shutdown sequence is as follows:

apcupsd detects that there is a power problem and it calls
/etc/apcupsd/apccontrol powerout. By default this event
does nothing, but it can be overridden to notify users, etc.

After the configured ONBATTERYDELAY, apcupsd
calls /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol onbattery, which normally sends a
message to all users informing them that the UPS is on batteries.

When one of the conditions listed below occurs, apcupsd issues a
shutdown command by calling /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol doshutdown,
which should perform a shutdown of your system using the system
shutdown(8) command. You can modify the behavior as described in
Customizing Event Handling.

The conditions that trigger the shutdown can be any of the following:

Running time on batteries have expired (TIMEOUT)

The battery runtime remaining is below the configured value (BATTERYLEVEL)

The estimated remaining runtime is below the configured value (MINUTES)

The UPS signals that the batteries are exhausted.

A shutdown could also be initiated if apcupsd detects that the
batteries are no longer functioning correctly. This case, though
very unusual, can happen at any time even if there is proper mains
voltage, and /etc/apcupsd/apccontrol emergency is called.

Just before initiating any shutdown through the apccontrol script,
apcupsd will create the file /etc/apcupsd/powerfail. This file will
be used later in the shutdown sequence to recall apcupsd after
syncing of the disks to initiate a power off of the UPS.

If the /etc/nologin file has not already been created, it will
normally be created during the shutdown sequence to prevent
additional users from logging in (see the NOLOGIN configuration
directive).

Even though apcupsd has requested the system to perform a shutdown,
it continues running.

When the system signals apcupsd to do exit, it does so. This is
part of the normal system shutdown (at least on Unix and Linux
systems) and the exact time that apcupsd receives the termination
signal depends on how the shutdown links (usually in /etc/rc.d) are
set.

Note that on Windows NT systems, apcupsd apparently continues to
run as a Service even though the machine is "shutdown".

During the shutdown of the system after apcupsd has been forced
to exit, one of the last things done by the system shutdown is to
call the halt script, which is usually in /etc/rc.d/halt or
/etc/rc.d/init.d/halt, or possibly in /sbin/init.d/rc.0 depending
on your system. If apcupsd was properly installed, this standard
halt script was modified to include a bit of new logic just before
the final halt of the system. It first tests if the file
/etc/apcupsd/powerfail exists, and if it does, it executes
/etc/apcupsd/apccontrol killpower. It is this last step that will
cause apcupsd to be re-executed with the --killpower option
on the command line. This option tells apcupsd to inform the UPS to
kill the power.

This final step is important if you want to ensure that your system
will automatically reboot when the power comes back on. The actual
code used on the Red Hat version is:

# See if this is a powerfail situation. # ***apcupsd***
if [ -f /etc/apcupsd/powerfail ]; then # ***apcupsd***
echo # ***apcupsd***
echo "APCUPSD will now power off the UPS" # ***apcupsd***
echo # ***apcupsd***
/etc/apcupsd/apccontrol killpower # ***apcupsd***
echo # ***apcupsd***
echo "Please ensure that the UPS has powered off before rebooting" # ***apcupsd***
echo "Otherwise, the UPS may cut the power during the reboot!!!" # ***apcupsd***
echo # ***apcupsd***
fi # ***apcupsd***

The above code must be inserted as late as possible in the halt
script. On many systems, such as Red Hat, all the disk drives were
unmounted, then remounted read-only, thus permitting access to the
/etc files and the apcupsd executable. If your system does not
explicitly remount the disks, you must remount them in read-only
mode in the code that you add. Examples of code fragments that do
this can be found in the distributions/suse subdirectory of the
source.

If you are not able to insert the above code in your halt script
because there is no halt script, or because your halt script calls
the init program as some Unix systems do, you can either just
forget about powering off the UPS, which means that your machine
will not automatically reboot after a power failure, or there is
yet another alternative, though not at all as satisfying as
inserting code in the halt script.

Only if you cannot insert the appropriate code in the halt script,
when you start apcupsd, normally from the /etc/rc.d/init.d/apcupsd
script, use the --kill-on-powerfail option. This will cause
apcupsd to program the UPS to shutoff the power just before it
(apcupsd) does the system shutdown. Please note that this is not
the most ideal solution. Read on to understand why.

A very important consideration is that you must set the EEPROM in
your UPS so that it waits a sufficient time for the system to halt
before it shuts off the UPS power.

When using a USB connection, apcupsd automatically sets this value
to 60 seconds. When using a serial connection to a SmartUPS, you
must configure the value in the UPS EEPROM by hand using apctest.

Obviously if your halt script is not properly modified, apcupsd
will not be able to shut off the power to the UPS, and if the power
returns before the batteries are exhausted your system will not
automatically reboot. In any case, your machine should have been
cleanly shut down.

In master/slave configurations, however, the master cannot be 100
percent sure that the slaves have all shutdown before it performs
the power off. To avoid this situation, be sure to configure any
slaves (clients) to shut down before the master by setting different
TIMEOUT, BATTERYLEVEL, or MINUTES parameters in the
config file.

Also, on a slave machine, you do not want to use the modified halt
script since it will recall apcupsd, which will detect that it is a
slave (i.e. no connection to the UPS) and will complain that it
cannot do the killpower. This situation is not harmful just
annoying and possibly confusing.

One possible problem during shutdown can be caused by remnants of
old versions. Please be sure to delete or rename all prior versions
(/usr/local/sbin/apcupsd or /sbin/powersc).

Normally, apcupsd is automatically started when
your system is rebooted. This normally occurs because the startup
script apcupsd is linked into the appropriate places in /etc/rc.d.
On most Linux systems, there is a program called chkconfig(8) that
will automatically link the startup script. This program is invoked
by the make install scripts, or it is explicitly done for those
systems that do not have chkconfig(8). If this is not the case, you
can either link it in appropriately yourself or explicitly call it
from your rc.local file. The appropriate manual way to startup
apcupsd is by executing:

<path>/apcupsd start

where path is normally /etc/rc.d or /etc/rc.d/init.d depending on
your system. Using this script is
important so that any files remaining around after a power failure
are removed. Likewise, shutting down apcupsd should be done with
the same script:

The APC UPS
protocol was originally analyzed by Pavel Korensky with additions
from Andre H. Hendrick beginning in 1995, and we want to give
credit for good, hard work, where credit is due. After having said
that, you will see that Steven Freed built much of the original
apcupsd information file.

The start of this chapter of the apcupsd manual in HTML format was
pulled from the Network UPS Tools (NUT) site
(http://www.networkupstools.org/ups-protocols/apcsmart.html). It
has been an invaluable tool in improving apcupsd, and I consider it
the Bible of APC UPS programming. In the course of using it, I
have added information gleaned from apcupsd and information
graciously supplied by APC.

Here's the information on the elusive APC smart signaling protocol
used by their higher end units (Back-UPS Pro, Smart-UPS,
Matrix-UPS, etc). What you see here has been collected from a
variety of sources. Some people analyzed the chatter between
PowerChute and their hardware. Others sent various characters to
the UPS and figured out what the results meant.

Normal 9 pin serial connections have TxD on 3 and RxD on 2. APC's
smart serial ports put TxD on pin 1 and RxD on pin 2. This means
you go nowhere if you use a normal straight through serial cable.
In fact, you might even power down the load if you plug one of
those cables in. This is due to the odd routing of pins - DTR and
RTS from the PC usually wind up driving the on/off line. So, when
you open the port, they go high and *poof* your computer dies.

Despite the lack of official information from APC, this table has
been constructed. It's standard RS-232 serial communications at
2400 bps/8N1. Don't rush the UPS while transmitting or it may stop
talking to you. This isn't a problem with the normal single
character queries, but it really does matter for multi-char things
like "@000". Sprinkle a few calls to usleep() in your code and
everything will work a lot better.

The following table describes the single character "Code" or
command that you can send to the UPS, its meaning, and what sort of
response the UPS will provide. Typically, the response shown below
is followed by a newline (\n in C) and a carriage return (\r in
C). If you send the UPS a command that it does not recognize or
that is not available on your UPS, it will normally respond with "NA"
for "not available", otherwise the response is given in the
"Typical results" column.

Character

Meaning

Typical results

Other info

^A

Model string

SMART-UPS 700

Spotty support for this query on older
models

^N

Turn on UPS

n/a

Send twice, with 1.5s delay between
chars. Only on 3rd gen SmartUPS and
Black Back-UPS Pros

^Z

Permitted
EEPROM
Values

long string

Gives the EEPROM permitted values for
your model. See EEPROM Values for
details.

A

Front panel
test

Light show +
"OK"

Also sounds the beeper for 2 seconds

B

Battery
voltage

27.87

Varies based on current level of
charge. See also Nominal Battery
Voltage.

C

Internal
Temperature

036.0

Units are degrees C

D

Runtime
calibration

!, then $

Runs until battery is below 25% (35%
for Matrix) Updates the 'j' values.
Only works at 100% battery charge. Can
be aborted with a second "D"

E

Automatic
self test
interval

336

Writable variable. Possible values:

"336" (14 days)

"168" (7 days)

"ON " (at power on) note extra space

"OFF" (never)

F

Line
frequency

60.00

Units are Hz. Value varies based on
locality, usually 50/60.

G

Cause of
last
transfer
to battery

O

Possible values:

R (unacceptable utility voltage rate
of change)

H (high utility voltage)

L (low utility voltage)

T (line voltage notch or spike)

O (no transfers since turnon)

S (transfer due to U command or
activation of UPS test from front
panel)

NA (transfer reason still not
available; read again)

I

Measure-UPS
Alarm enable

FF

not decoded yet

J

Measure-UPS
Alarm status

0F,00

not decoded yet

K

Shutdown
with grace
period (no
return)

OK or *

Send twice with > 1.5s delay between
chars. Older units send "*" instead of
"OK". Length of grace period is set
with Grace Period command. UPS will
remain off and NOT power on if utility
power is restored.

L

Input line
voltage

118.3

Value varies based on locality. Does
not always read 000.0 on line failure.

These single character messages are sent by the UPS any time there
is an Alert condition. All other responses indicated above are sent
by the UPS only in response to a query or action command.

Character

Meaning

Description

!

Line Fail

Sent when the UPS goes on-battery, repeated every 30
seconds until low battery condition reached. Sometimes
occurs more than once in the first 30 seconds.

$

Return from
line fail

UPS back on line power. Only sent if a ! has been sent
previously.

%

Low battery

Sent to indicate low battery. Not implemented on
SmartUPS v/s or BackUPS Pro models

+

Return from
low batt

Sent when the battery has been recharged to some level
Only sent if a % has been sent previously.

?

Abnormal
condition

Sent for conditions such as "shutdown due to overload"
or "shutdown due to low battery capacity". Also occurs
within 10 minutes of turnon.

=

Return from
abnormal
condition

Sent when the UPS returns from an abnormal condition
where ? was sent, but not a turn-on. Not implemented on
SmartUPS v/s or BackUPS Pro models.

*

About to
turn off

Sent when the UPS is about to switch off the load. No
commands are processed after this character is sent. Not
implemented on SmartUPS v/s, BackUPS Pro, or 3rd
generation SmartUPS models.

#

Replace
battery

Sent when the UPS detects that the battery needs to be
replaced. Sent every 5 hours until a new battery test is
run or the UPS is shut off. Not implemented on SmartUPS
v/s or BackUPS Pro models.

&

Check alarm
register
for fault
(Measure-UPS)

Sent to signal that temp or humidity out of set limits.
Also sent when one of the contact closures changes
state. Sent every 2 minutes until the alarm conditions
are reset. Only sent for alarms enabled with I. Cause of
alarm may be determined with J. Not implemented on
SmartUPS v/s or BackUPS Pro.

|

Variable
change in
EEPROM

Sent whenever any EEPROM variable is changed. Only
supported on Matrix UPS and 3rd generation SmartUPS
models.

There are at this time a maximum of 12 different values that can be
programmed into the UPS EEPROM. They are:

Command

Meaning

c

The UPS Id or name

x

The last date the batteries were replaced

u

The Upper Transfer Voltage

l

The Lower Transfer Voltage

e

The Return Battery Charge Percentage

o

The Output Voltage when on Batteries

s

The Sensitivity to Line Quality

p

The Shutdown Grace Delay

q

The Low Battery Warning Delay

k

The Alarm Delay

r

The Wakeup Delay

E

The Automatic Self Test Interval

The first two cases (Ident and Batt date) are somewhat special in
that you tell the UPS you want to change the value, then you supply
8 characters that are saved in the EEPROM. The last ten item are
programmed by telling the UPS that you want it to cycle to the next
permitted value.

In each case, you indicate to the UPS that you want to change the
EEPROM by first sending the appropriate query command (e.g. "c" for
the UPS ID or "u" for the Upper Transfer voltage. This command is
then immediately followed by the cycle EEPROM command or "-". In
the case of the UPS Id or the battery date, you follow the cycle
command by the eight characters that you want to put in the EEPROM.
In the case of the other ten items, there is nothing more to
enter.

The UPS will respond by "OK" and approximately 5 seconds later by a
vertical bar (|) to indicate that the EEPROM was changed.

The NIS network server in apcupsd is capable of sending status and events data
to clients that request it. The communication between the client and the server
is performed over a TCP connection to the NISPORT (normally port 3551). The
client opens a connection to the server and sends a message, to which the
server will reply with one or more messages. Each message consists of a 2-byte
length (in network byte order) followed by that many bytes of data. Both the
client->server and server->client messages follow this format.

apcupsd supports two commands, sent as the body of a message:

"status" - The status command requests that the server send a copy of all
status values, in the form displayed by apcaccess. After the client sends the
"status" command, the server will reply with a series of messges, each one
containing one line of apcaccess status data. The end of the command series
is indicated by an empty message (length of 0).

"events" - The events command operates the same as "status" except the
server replies with lines from the log of recent events.

As an example, the following bytes would be sent by a client to solicit the status:

0x00 0x06 0x73 0x74 0x61 0x74 0x75 0x73

The first two bytes are the data length (6) in network byte order. The 6 bytes
of data that follow are the ASCII characters for "status". The server will
respond to this command with a series of its own messages containing the status
data.

The apcupsd spec file contains defines
to build for several platforms: RedHat 7.x (rh7), RedHat 8.0 (rh8),
RedHat 9 (rh9), Fedora Core (fedora_core), RedHat Enterprise Linux
and clones (rhel3 and rhel4), SuSE 9 & 10 (suse), and Mandrake
(mdk). The package build is controlled by a define set at the
beginning of the file. These defines basically just control the
dependency information that gets coded into the finished rpm
package. So while you could technically build a package without
defining a platform, or with an incorrect platform, and have it
install and run it would not contain correct dependency information
for the rpm database. The platform define may be edited in the spec
file directly (by default all defines are set to 0 or "not set").
For example, to build the RedHat 7.x package find the line in the
spec file which reads

%define rh7 0

and edit it to read

%define rh7 1

Alternately you may pass the define on the command line when
calling rpmbuild:

Up through version 3.12, by default standard serial port support was built
and the apcupsd-std package was produced. The usb package pre-configured
the configuration files for usb devices and installed a couple
additional tools in /etc/apcupsd but the usb driver was built
regardless. To get the usb package and support in those versions
either set the

With the release of 3.14 USB support is now considered standard and
the apcupsd-std and apcupsd-usb packages are obsoleted in favor of
a single apcupsd package configured for usb connected UPS's. The
serial port driver is still built and can be configured accordingly
after installation. If you are performing an upgrade it will of
course not replace your current config file.

The build directive:

--define "build_usb 1"

is no longer recognized.

What other defines are used?

There is a define for the initdir for the daemon control script. On
RedHat or Mandrake systems this is set to /etc/rc.d/init.d/. On
SuSE systems this is set to /etc/rc.d. You would only need to edit
this if packaging for a platform that uses a different directory.

A second define controls whether the Gnome monitoring application,
new in the 3.14 release, is built. This application requires the
Gtk2 version to be >= 2.4. If you want to build the apcupsd-gapcmon
package add:

--define "build_gapcmon 1"

A third define controls whether the SNMP driver is built. If you
want to build the net-snmp driver add:

--define "build_snmp 1"

Can I supply packages for other platforms you do not publish?

Yes, there are tools provided for contributors to supply rpm
packages for platforms for which support is provided in the spec
file but for which the development team chooses not to release
binary packages, usually due to lack of interest or lack of an
available platform. Please see platforms/contrib/README in the
source package.

I'm getting errors about not having permission when I try to build the packages. Do I need to be root?

No, you do not need to be root
and, in fact, it is better practice to build rpm packages as a
non-root user. Apcupsd's packages are designed to be built by a
regular user but you must make a few changes on your system to do
this. If you are building on your own system then the simplest
method is to add write permissions for all to the build directory
(/usr/src/redhat/). To accomplish this execute one of the following
commands as root depending on your distribution, RedHat, SuSE or
Mandriva, respectively:

If you are working on a shared system where you can not use the
method above then you need to recreate the /usr/src/redhat (or
other) directory tree with all of it's subdirectories inside your
home directory. Then create a file named

.rpmmacros

in your home directory (or edit the file if it already exists) and
add the following line:

Apcupsd is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, version 2
(GPLv2). The full text of this license may be found in the COPYING file at the
top of the source tree and online at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html.

Source files are copyright of their specific author(s), as noted in the files.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of version 2 of the GNU General
Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
License along with this program; if not, write to the Free
Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston,
MA 02111-1307, USA.

Apcupsd incorporates the libusbhid library which is subject to the following
copyright and license:

Copyright (c) 1999 Lennart Augustsson <augustss@netbsd.org>
All rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.